Too Many Alternates
by Prince Pondincherry
Summary: A twist on the Peggy Sue trope. What if more than one person came back? And how will they react to the others when they're from different pasts? Inspired by Far Too Many Time Travelers, a Harry Potter fanfic (although I'm shooting more for drama than comedy) and by some comments in the Atonement thread on Spacebattles.
1. 1-1: Madison Clements

I was in Mr. G.'s old classroom at Winslow. What? But Winslow was destroyed! I was also smaller. What the hell had happened? Had I been hit by some sort of Stranger illusion? But no, what would be the point? This seemed real to me, if very odd. And even if I had, I'd have to trust my teammates back in the real world to get me out. Either way, it would probably be best to treat this like the real world and just keep my eyes out for anything weird.

I glanced around the room and found it. "Taylor," I breathed out. I started to tear up. Taylor was dead. We killed her, and now someone was obviously tormenting me by showing her alive. I wasn't sure what to do. I….I didn't want to deal with this. But if Taylor was alive in this dream world, I'd have to make it up to her somehow. But how?

Then a horrible, but sort of wonderful at the same time, thought occurred to me. If Taylor was alive and Winslow wasn't destroyed, did this mean we were in the past? Were Emma, Sophia, and I still…bullying her? Well, not anymore. Even if I had to make myself the target for Emma and Sophia again, I wasn't going to let the bullying continue, and I was absolutely going to prevent Taylor's death this time.

My musings were interrupted by the bell ringing. I watched as Taylor marched determinedly out of the classroom, then snapped out of a slight trance to pack up and rush out into the hallways after her. I needed to catch up to her and apologize and make sure the others backed off. I rushed out, nearly tripping as I got used to my smaller legs—another point of evidence in favor of the time travel theory—and looked back and forth in the hallway, but I couldn't see where she had gone. I resolved to search the halls until I found her. Taylor's death and bullying had been the biggest mistakes in my life, and if this was really an opportunity to fix them, I was going to do everything in my power to do so.

But where would she be? Taylor never ate in the cafeteria anymore, it was too easy for us to find her. Another pang of remorse filled my chest, and I had to remind myself what I had told Riley—I wasn't that person anymore, I was doing good now, and I'd never be that person again if I didn't want to be. And I _didn't_ want to be. I was a hero now.

I couldn't find Taylor for a long time; she wasn't anywhere we'd found her in the halls before, which made some sense, but I wasn't sure where she could be. Eventually I decided to check the bathrooms, feeling even _worse_ about it. Who bullies someone so hard that they have to eat lunch on the toilet to escape? Oh right, _me_. In the second bathroom I checked, the lights were off for some reason. I flicked the light switch on and saw there was one stall with the door locked. Feeling vaguely creepy, I glanced at the gap at the bottom of the stall door and couldn't see feet. So she probably was hiding in there. I knocked on the door, but there was no response. I knocked a little more insistently, tentatively asking, "Is anybody in there?"

"It's occupied," was the response. I recognized the timid, squeaky voice immediately.

"Emma? What are you doing in there? It's me, Madison."

"I don't…leave me alone, I don't want to talk about it."

I had a sudden flash of inspiration. "Emma, is something weird going on? Are you…" I almost asked 'Are you wondering how you got here,' but if she wasn't, I didn't want to look weird. Instead, I looked around to make sure nobody else was in earshot, then asked, "Oversight?"

"What? What's Oversight?" Oh, I guess not. I had thought for a moment she might be from my time as well. "But Madison, this probably sounds crazy, but I think I travelled back in time." Oh, I guess I was right. But if she didn't answer to the name Oversight, what would that mean? Maybe she was from earlier than me, before she got her new name? "I knew you were going to think I was crazy. Just don't tell anyone, please," Emma continued, sounding panicked.

"No, wait, I don't think you're crazy! Me too!"

A pause. "What?"

"Me too! I'm pretty sure I also travelled back in time. We just…well, we just killed Jack Slash. When did you come from? I think it was probably earlier."

"What?" Emma sounded shocked. She opened the stall door and I could see her surprised face, as well as two small shadow monsters. I almost yelped and ran away, but she was petting them, so they were hopefully harmless. "What do you mean, you killed Jack Slash?!" Yeah, something weird was going on here. Even if we were both time travelers, I was pretty sure we weren't from the same timeline.

 **Madison is from Atonement b** **y Cerulean** **and Emma is from Nyctophobia** **by Lord K** **.**


	2. 1-2: Emma Barnes

"What?" I opened the stall door, needing to make sure I was actually talking to sweet, cute little Madison Clements. "What do you mean, you killed Jack Slash?!"

"Well, Emma…you can't tell anyone, but when I came from, I was a Ward. Tether. You might have heard of me."

"No, never heard of you." Then I remembered why the stall door had been closed. The two shadow creatures I'd been petting to help deal with my near-breakdown in the dining hall. Oh, shit. I made the shadows go away and then said, slightly panicked, "Please don't tell anyone I'm a cape either."

"Don't worry, I won't," Madison said. "There are unwritten rules among capes. You don't just unmask somebody, that's not okay. And even if it was, you're my friend, I wouldn't do that to you."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"So, when I'm from, you're still a cape, but you don't control shadow creatures, as far as I know. Instead, you control electronic devices for a few blocks around you."

"I…sorry, I don't know what happened to you after Taylor got outed as Skitter in Arcadia. My family moved to Detroit and we sort of fell out of touch."

"Taylor was outed as who? She…she was a cape in your timeline?"  
"Yeah, a …. villain named Skitter. And then she, well, she killed Alexandria, and now she's a hero in the Wards. Well, not now, now, but…"

"I know what you mean. That's so…" Madison paused.

"What did Taylor do in your timeline? Did you not find out she was Skitter?"

Madison suddenly looked really guilty and sad. "Emma…in my timeline, Taylor died in the locker. Did…did we still do that in yours?"

"Yeah, but she lived. I think…I think that might have been when she triggered."

"Oh, no." No Madison did start crying and I joined her. She stepped forward and pulled my head onto her shoulder, and we stood there crying on each other's shoulders until the warning bell rang.

"Emma…I guess I don't know anything about you, but…I can tell you're not comfortable around people, are you? And I'm guessing bright lights, either?"

"Y…yeah, light's bothered me since I…since I got my powers, and I don't go out much during the day."

"Emma, listen to me. You are my friend, I'll always be here for you, okay? If I remember correctly, we have the next class together. I'll sit right next to you, and I'll make sure to keep everyone's attention off you, okay. We can make it through this, alright?"

I gulped, wiped the tear tracks off my face, and stood up. "Alright. I think I can do this." We walked out of the bathroom and into the hallway, and as we headed to our next class, Madison's hand found mine and gave it a quick squeeze. _I don't know what's going on, but I've got my friend back now, so I'm sure it will work out. I just have to get through the rest of the school day._


	3. 1-3: Madison Clements

When I set out at lunchtime to find and help my classmate, I hadn't expected that it would be Emma I was helping, but she definitely needed at. As much as I wanted to apologize to Taylor, Emma needed my help more. Taylor was functional, while Emma…wasn't. She reminded me a lot of my Emma—Oversight—while she was still a prisoner of Pandora, instead of her friend. But apparently this version of Emma had never gone through all of that.

Once I had sat down in class, I thought to check the date, and I got my next surprise. Assuming I remembered all the dates correctly, it was the Friday before my first night out as Tether, when I helped the Wards take down Lung for the first time. If Taylor was still alive at this point, then…how much was even the same still? Then it hit me for the first time—Emma was my only friend at this point. I felt brief joy as I realized my parents were probably still alive and my brother still out of the Birdcage, but then I realized nobody else would know me. Ethan, Sam, Dennis, Mars, none of them even knew who I was. Cassie was still part of E88, Riley was still Bonesaw—and I shivered in horror at that thought—Pandora wouldn't even _exist_ yet, Theo was still stuck with Kaiser, Hunter was still in the Birdcage…I nearly started crying again. I never really appreciated before how lucky so many of my friends were. I resolved then and there that I would do my absolute best to give everyone the second chance I knew they had been able to get the first time around, while still helping Taylor and any others I failed the first time.

Plans and ideas whirled through my mind, and I totally missed whatever the class was about, but this was more important. First things first, I couldn't do this on my own, but who could I trust to believe me and be willing to help? I was going to tell my parents about being a cape and bullying Taylor, but they wouldn't be able to do anything about the rest of it. My next thought went to Sam and Ethan. They didn't know who I was now, but I knew them, and I would be I could get them to help me.

But what to do with Emma? I looked over at her and gave her what was hopefully a reassuring smile. I had no idea what was going on with her, but it was obvious she needed help too, so I figured I'd just have to bring her with. I wondered if anybody else was a time traveler from a different timeline, or even better, if someone else was from the same timeline as me. Oh well, there wasn't really a way to find out short of announcing my story to the public and seeing who didn't think I was crazy, and there was no way I was going to do that.

So the plan was go find Ethan and Sam, figure out what's going on, and then apologize to Taylor later.

The bell rang for the end of class. I packed up and stood up to leave, giving Emma a quick one-armed hug and whispering, "You did good." She was a nervous wreck, but she had made it through class alright. I just wasn't sure how well she'd hold up to a full day of classes next week. Then I realized I wasn't even sure when she arrived, but when I asked, it turned out she got here the same time as me—five minutes before lunch started. We went to get our stuff from our lockers together before heading outside.

"M…Madison…do you think you could come over to my house? I don't want to go home alone." Oh, right, our parents were coming to pick us up.

"Actually, Emma, I was thinking we could go visit my…some friends of mine who might be able to figure out what's going on with the whole, thing, you know," I said, gesturing vaguely at nothing.

"Oh! Uhm, do you think you could talk to my dad for me? I think…he'll be able to tell something is wrong."

"Okay, sure." I made two phone calls; one to my mom claiming I was going over to Emma's, and one to Mr. Barnes telling him Emma was coming over by my place. Hopefully they didn't talk to each other about it.

We got off the bus and started walking. I waited until nobody was in earshot before saying, "Okay, Emma, we're going to talk to Sam and Ethan. They were my guardians after my parents…after my parents died in the other timeline, and I think they can help us."

"Oh. I'm sorry about your parents."

"Thanks, but they're alive now, which is still a weird thought." I paused. "I need to tell you a huge secret, but only if you absolutely promise never to tell anyone."

"Ok, of course, I won't tell anyone. What's the secret? You already told me you're a Ward."

"Sam is Battery and Ethan is Assault. That's why I think they can help us."

"Oh, ok. I promise, I'll never tell anyone, of course. Unwritten rules, like you said, right?"

"Thanks, Emma."

When we got to their house, nobody was there, so I decided we should wait in the backyard to be less noticeable. Emma and I passed the time sharing stories of our respective timelines. Apparently the Leviathan attack and the S9 attack had been a lot worse in Emma's timeline, while for her part, Emma was horrified by my story about the Birdcage breakout. I decided not to tell Emma that one of her best friends had previously been Bonesaw—I didn't think she could take that right now. I was still shocked that Taylor had apparently taken over the Brockton Bay underworld at the head of the Undersiders. I decided I'd have to head that off if I could. I had a suspicion that our bullying had been what pushed Taylor to villainy, so it was really important to fix that.

A little bit after night fell, I heard a car pulling up in the driveway. Glancing over the top of the gate to the front yard, I saw that both Ethan and Sam were here. "Let me do the talking," I whispered to Emma. I waited for them to go inside and gave them a little time to settle down before going to the front door and knocking.

Ethan opened the door quipping, "No thank you, we have enough Girl Scout cookies" when he saw me. Tears came to my eyes at the lack of recognition in his face. I'd known this would happen, but it was sad that he had no idea who I was, while he was still just as I expected him to be. I'd been holding out a little hope that maybe he'd time travelled too and would know me, but I guess not. I managed to speak,

"No, we're…we're not here to sell cookies. I just…I'm sorry for bothering you, but I really needed help, and I didn't know who else to talk to, and you probably think I'm crazy cuz you don't even know who I am and…"

"Hey, wait just a minute," he cut off my rambling. "I might not know who you are, but I'm not about to turn away someone who needs help." He turned and shouted, "Sam, come over here." Then he turned back to me. "What do you need help with? Are you in trouble with somebody?"

I gulped a little, getting ahold of myself again. "No, just…can we talk somewhere more private?" Ethan looked confused, but invited us inside. Sam noticed they had guests and offered us something to drink as we sat down on couches in the living room.

"So, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"Okay, I'm going to be totally honest with you," I started. "We know you are Assault and Battery. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone…well, anyone I wouldn't trust with my own identity. I'm also a cape." I attached a line to a vase and pulled it to my hand.

"What do you mean, us? Superheroes? Yeah, right," Ethan said sarcastically.

"And you really should be careful with who you show your powers," Sam said. "If you let the wrong people find out, they might try to force you into a gang."

"I know, but I trust you," I said, slightly exasperated.

"Why? You don't even know us," said Sam.

 _But I do know you!_ I wanted to shout. Still, I thought it would be best if I tried not to convince them I was crazy. "You're heroes, I trust you."

"I already told you, we're not" I cut him off,

"Look, I know who you are, and I know you're going to keep up the charade, but I'm going to pretend you admitted it and say the rest of what I have to say." The room was quiet for a second.

"That sounds fair," Sam admitted.

"Thank you." I took a breath, composing myself. "This is going to sound crazy, so please let me explain before you interrupt me." Another breath. "I think we're time travelers. I remember going out as a hero, fighting Lung, and joining the Wards sometime around now, maybe this Sunday. That was a long time ago. Last I remember, it was October. A…a lot of things happened in between then. That's why I know you. Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay in May, and during the attack, Coil…Coil had my parents killed." I wasn't going to let this Sophia get away with the bullying, but there was no reason to get her in trouble for something she hadn't done yet. "Afterwards, you guys…you guys took me in, and you've been my guardians for months now." The three others in the room had expressions combining shock and pity. Luckily, I didn't notice any incredulity—it seemed like they believed me, at least. Then they schooled their expressions once again.

"Look, I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope we were good guardians to you—although I'm finding it hard to picture right now—but you still haven't said anything that conclusively proves you're telling the truth," Ethan said.

"Would it be enough to show my future knowledge? I've already said who you are."

"There are other ways of finding the identities of capes than being from the future," Sam said gently.

"I can tell you the identities of the rest of the Wards and Protectorate? Um, I'd tell you Kaiser and Purity's identities or the identities of the Travellers or the Undersiders, but I don't want you to just rush off and try to arrest them. Oh! Coil is Thomas Calvert! Although I guess that's not helpful, you can't investigate that or he'll realize we're onto him."

"Thomas Calvert…I know that name. Isn't he a PRT consultant?" Ethan asked. Sam shot him a funny look, and I wondered whether she was surprised he knew or annoyed that he was giving more evidence to them being Assault and Battery.

"Yes! Actually, he's the main reason I came to you. He's got a ridiculous power, he can make a decision and split reality into two timelines, and then choose the one he wants. He's got a massive underground base and an army of mercenaries and he's hired the Travellers and the Undersiders and Purity and he's going to kidnap Dinah Alcott and Panacea and enslave Sophia and kill my parents and I can't do it all myself, I need help, and I didn't know who else to go to. Nobody's going to believe me, and I just don't know what to do." I was interrupted by Sam putting her arms on my shoulders.

"I believe you."

"Really? You're not just saying that?" I _definitely_ didn't sniffle back a tear.

"Yes, I believe you. You came to us for help, you trusted us. I'm not going to repay that by doubting you."

"Thank you," I said as Sam pulled me into a hug. The hug ended and we sat back down. Sam started speaking again,

"I guess we should report what you know about Coil's plans back to the boss."

"No! Calvert's got spies everywhere, he'll find out if we make it official, and Armsmaster will, I'm sure of it. Last time I got him to work with me and trust me eventually, but only after I had a lot of hard evidence. There's even less to go on this time."

"We should at least warn New Wave that Coil's going to kidnap Panacea."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked down at my lap. "So, um, about that…I think it's best if we let it happen."

"WHAT?"

I rushed to explain. "The Travelers have a cape who makes evil clones of any cape she touches. After Coil kidnaps Amy, he makes her try to heal the cape, and it ends up making an evil clone of Amy. We called her Pandora. She could absorb people, control her biology, and create clones of herself, and she was different from the other clones. She rewrote her mind—let me back up. The clones are always loyal to the cape who made them, but Pandora rewrote her mind so she wouldn't have to do that anymore, and Dinah, Crystal, and I were able to convince her to stop killing innocents. Eventually, she split into 18 individual personalities, and they were all real people. Amy didn't really get hurt by the kidnapping, and if it never happens, Pandora will never exist."

"This sounds really risky just to create 18 homicidal clones," Ethan said.

"Pandora is my friend, I'm not just going to let her never be born!" I declared.

"Uh, Mads…I don't think that's going to work." Ethan, Sam, and I whipped our heads to the side in shock. Honestly, I'd forgotten Emma was there, she was so quiet and blended in so well in the shadows on the other end of the couch. They were clearly unnatural, but only because I was looking for it; I suspected Sam and Ethan didn't even realize she was a parahuman.

"Why not?" I asked.

"None of that happened the way you said it did in my timeline. I mean, Dinah Alcott was still kidnapped by Coil, but the rest of it was totally different. Nobody ever kidnapped Panacea. And I'm pretty sure we're in my timeline, since Taylor's still alive." Silence. _Shit_.

"What do we do now?"


	4. 1-4: Madison Clements

**A/N: Yes, I know Anne is older than Emma. She's lying.**

"Hi! I'm Madison and this is Emma. We're friends of Dinah's. Can we talk to her?"

The man at the door looked dubious. "You are? She's never mentioned you before. Where do you know her from?"

"School," Emma spoke up. "My sister Anne is Dinah's friend, and Madison is my friend."

"Why don't you just ask her? I'm sure she'll tell you she wants to talk to us," I added.

"Okay," the man said hesitantly. "Wait here for a minute. I'll go ask her." He closed the door and we waited nervously. I was pretty sure Dinah had to have her powers by now if Coil was going to kidnap her next week, but I didn't know if she'd used up all her questions for the day or if she'd even be willing to use her power see who we wore. Worst case scenario, she'd just admit that she'd never heard of us before and her dad would throw us out.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded, as Mr. Alcott returned and let us in. As we walked through the halls and up the stairs after him, I planned out the upcoming conversation in my head. My first thoughts on being stranded back in time were to talk to my friends, but none of them except Emma would even know me. Next I spoke to responsible adults, but even Sam and Ethan didn't know what to do. The only better place I could go to ask for advice was Thinkers, and fortunately I knew of a super-powerful precog in town. Dinah seemed able to consistently pull off miracles. She was the one who had arranged for Riley's, Emma's, and Pandora's redemption and had somehow managed to orchestrate a way to deal with the Siberian before the Nine even came to town. I could think of no one better to ask for help in redeeming Riley and Cassie again, taking down Coil, and making sure the good Pandoras came into existence.

"Here you are, girls. Dinah's in her room waiting for you. Second door on the left," Mr. Alcott gestured down the hallway. I walked to the door, pushed it open, and entered.

"Dinah, you probably don't know me, but I need your he…" The breath left my lungs as the little girl wrapped herself tightly around me, crying.

"You're here you're here thank you don't let him take me I don't want the candy," she rambled. I hugged her tight.

"Dinah, breathe. You're safe. Don't worry, you're safe. I promise I won't let him force you to do anything. You're safe now." I'd been assuming whatever plan we came up with would involve Dinah temporarily getting kidnapped, which I'm pretty sure she allowed to happen in my time so she could get Pandora, but things were pretty obviously different here. The Dinah I knew was always calm and collected. She always had a plan, and she tried so hard to be a grown-up. This Dinah was still a little girl, and I wasn't going to let anything happen to her.

I looked around the room as I softly stroked Dinah's hair, trying to soothe her. It was surreal seeing Dinah in an actual girl's bedroom as opposed to an abandoned hotel or barn. She even had pink walls, princess sheets, and a Mouse Protector plushie. In my timeline, lots of people had happy endings that I'd need to arrange again, but Dinah had lost her childhood. She'd been the only one who could see the good future and do what needed to be done to make it come to pass. Now she shared the responsibility with me, and I resolved to help _her_ this time.

Once I had calmed Dinah down, I said, "Dinah, we need your help. We've time travelled from the future, and there are a few good things that happened in my timeline that didn't happen in Emma's. Do you think you can help me figure out how to help my other friends?"

"Sure, of course I'll help you, uh…what was your name again?" She blushed a little and ducked away shyly. "I kind of hugged you before you could introduce yourself."

I smiled. "I'm Madison Clements, soon to be known as the superhero Tether. This is my friend Emma Barnes, also known as"

"Nyktos." I let my friend take over her own introduction. "I'm the independent hero Nyktos. I can make shadow creatures." She demonstrated by making some shadows coalesce into a small bug before dispersing it.

"I'm Dinah Alcott, and I can see the future." We'd obviously known this already, but I suspected it meant something to Dinah to be able to say that and be taken seriously, if she hadn't been able to go to her parents for help against Coil. "I haven't really thought of a cape name yet."

I smiled again. "Don't worry. Emma and I were talking on the way over here, and you never came up with a cape name in either of our timelines either. You tended to just be the awesome behind-the-scenes mastermind type for me, and you made money off your abilities publicly in Emma's timeline."

"So how can I help?"

"Well first, do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

"Okay, but not too many though. It makes my head hurt when I try to ask too many. Aaaand you probably know that already."

"Hah, I bet you're not used to other people knowing the future, are you? Anyway, my first question. What is the chance that Pandora will be created and become one of the good guys again?"

"Who is Pandora?"

"Pandora is…well, the Travelers have a cape called Noelle who's kind of monstrous. In my timeline, she cloned Panacea, and the clone modified the part of her brain that made her loyal to Noelle. She had the ability to duplicate herself by absorbing biomass from others. Eventually there were eighteen separate Pandoras who made up a hive-mind, and you and Emma redeemed them and convinced them to stop killing criminals." As I spoke, a sinking feeling filled my gut as I realized how unlikely all of this was. And then I remembered that Ballistic killing Pandora-Prime was the only thing that had allowed the Pandoras I was friends with to develop, and the sinking feeling increased.

"That's really confusing, but, let me think." We waited for a bit while Dinah figured out how to word the question in a way her power could answer. "The chance that a clone of Panacea, made by a monster, got self-modification powers and was able to duplicate herself and became friends with one of the three of us is…0.0012568 percent. I'm sorry, maybe I should word it so she doesn't have to become friends with us, but I wasn't sure how else to say she became a good guy."

I stopped her. "No, it's alright. It was…it was really unlikely anyway. I just had to know for sure." I decided not to dwell on it too much. There was nothing I could do for Pandora, but there were plenty of others I could help. Oh! Would Riley even stop being Bonesaw without Pandora to experiment on? "Ok, next question. What is the chance that Riley, Bonesaw, leaves the Slaughterhouse 9 and helps the good guys?"

"I need to know what she looks like or my power won't work." The Alcotts were a wealthy family, so Dinah had her own computer despite being in middle school. We booted up a computer and searched for the Slaughterhouse 9, and Bonesaw in particular. Then I asked Dinah again.

"85.73238%. It's only 60.83920% in the next year, and there's about a 10% chance she dies in the years after that, but if she lives it eventually goes to 95.32034%."

I grinned broadly, gave out a little whoop, and hopped into the air a little. "That's amazing! Wow, I totally expected our chances to be much worse than that! Okay, what's next? Hmm, I want to make sure we can convert Cassie, but we should probably worry more about Coil for the time being." Emma and Dinah had ideas of their own, and we continued planning well into the evening.

"Don't ask any more questions. I only want to ask one more today, and I want to ask it myself. The chance that I get attacked before I see you again if you leave tonight is…2.037283%."

"That's good to hear," I said.

"And you have our phone numbers, so make sure you call us if that 2% does happen," Emma said.

"I will! Thank you, thank you both! I'm so glad we're working together now, and don't worry, I'm sure we'll figure out how to help all your friends and stop all the bad people!" Dinah jumped up and hugged both of us.

"We should head home now; it's getting late."

"Madison, can I sleep over at your house tonight? I think my family will notice I'm different if I go home," Emma said timidly. She'd seemed much more in her element when we were planning, but now the same nervous girl from school was back.

"Of course! Just let me call my parents and let them know, and make sure you call your parents."

"Mom, Dad, we're here!" I rubbed tears from my eyes as I saw my parents alive and well.

"Hello Emma, Madison. Did you girls have fun at Emma's house?" Emma nodded a little, but I was too choked up to respond. And while I wasn't going to tell them about the time travel until I was sure they wouldn't think I was crazy, I did have something to say. Why was this so hard, dangit? It wasn't the first time I had had this conversation!

"Mom, Dad, I have something really important to tell you. Can we sit down to talk?" My parents suddenly looked serious, while I was wavering between joy and guilt.

"Of course, Madison, what is it?" We went and sat on our couches while Emma excused herself and headed to my room.

"I'm a cape." I attached a line to a TV remote and pulled it to me. "Aaand…I've been bullying a girl at school badly enough to send her to the hospital."

 **Meanwhile…**

Missy Biron looked around the classroom in surprise. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a homework planner and checked the date. _Not again!_


	5. 1-5: Amelia Claire Lavere

**Warning: Spoilers for** _ **Amelia**_ **and _Memories of a Simurgh Victim - Diabolus ex Machina._**

I was in Arcadia high school, second period math class. And of course, I was cut off from Taylor—from my _wife_ —during our wedding reception! Really, universe? Or rather, really, whatever ridiculous Stranger or Shaker had somehow gotten past our total knowledge of a planet and the many powerful Thinkers we had at the reception? Well, when I put it like that, it sounded extremely unlikely. But it had evidently happened. I started to get scared. What the hell was going on? We'd all been half-expecting Scion to have the horrible timing of flipping out and destroying the world during our wedding, despite what Dinah's predictions said, but we hadn't expected this!

I looked around for some clue as to what was going on. It appeared to be just before lunchtime. The other students in the room looked normal, not somewhat downtrodden or worried, so this was evidently meant to be before Leviathan's attack. Reaching in my backpack—and if this was an illusion, the illusionist did an incredibly good job, because I couldn't tell anything was wrong—and pulling out a planner, I saw that it was in fact a Friday. If I remembered correctly, it was several weeks before Leviathan. Wait…I realized that it was actually the week before I first met Taylor, at the bank. I smiled a little. What a great way to start a relationship, beaning the other girl on the head. Then I felt a pang of sadness when I continued not to feel Taylor's response. Whatever this was, it had better be temporary, because I wasn't sure how well I'd handle things otherwise.

The bell rang, and I absently wrote down the homework from the board, collected my things, and headed into the hallway. Hmm, what to do next? How could I figure this out? In our many discussions of possible cape powers, illusion-type Strangers had come up, and we'd decided that if we were ever caught in one, we should look for any breaks in the illusion, but not do anything dumb like try to get ourselves killed in case it carried over instead of snapping us out of it. But as I looked around the hallway, nothing seemed out of place. Really, my best bet was to wait until someone on the outside took out the Stranger. _Of course, most of our allies were in the same place and may have been hit at the same time_ , a traitorous voice in the back of my head pointed out. _No, let's not think about that!_ I determinedly thought back. Then someone shoved her way past me and I realized I'd stopped in the middle of the hallway. I blushed a little, realizing I may have been getting a little too used to talking back to the voices in my head. And, there's the sadness again.

With nowhere better to go, I just walked to my locker, deposited my things, and headed to the cafeteria. As I was standing in line, I was suddenly accosted by a pair of arms wrapping around my waist and hugging me tight. "Amy, isn't it great? We're out of there!"

I turned to face my sister, the motion made awkward by the arms around my waist. "It was just class, not jail."

"Oh. I thought you might remember." My heart leapt a little. If Vicky remembered too, I wasn't alone! Of course, that also upped the chances of this being an attack and not…something else. Then I thought of something and frowned.

"Yes, I remember, but why would I be happy to get dragged out of the happiest moment of my life, something we've been planning for years?" Vicky looked chagrined.

"No, no, you don't remember. We **definitely** weren't happy," she said darkly.

"What? Vicky, what do you mean?"

"Not here, okay? Let's just get our food and go somewhere private and I'll tell you." Worried and confused, I focused on getting some unappetizing mush from the cafeteria—God, I'd forgotten how awful this was.

"Vicky, how about we go outside?" She didn't have a problem with it, so we headed to a somewhat unused area of the schoolyard without many prying eyes or ears. Then I touched the nearby tree and grew some actually decent food directly out of the trunk. "Here, Vicky, have some decent food."

"Awesome, Amy! That's so cool! I really don't tell you enough how amazing you are!" Vicky said. I was getting even more confused. Vicky had always been enthusiastic, but she was also somewhat snarky, and didn't just go around giving me heartfelt compliments. It was almost like…My thought trailed off and I added another worry to the pile. Maybe this illusion was poorly trying to give me my greatest desires, and had just dragged up some of my older desires instead of the more recent ones? Vicky _had_ been awfully clingy on the way out here.

"So, you were going to tell me what you remember," I prompted.

"Oh! Yeah. So, promise me you won't freak out and you'll take me seriously, okay?"  
"I promise."

"So, Amy…I think I'm a time traveler." _I knew it!_ "I come from a few weeks from now. The Simurgh attacked Brockton Bay." _What?_ It was awful, an evil clone of Mom tried to kill us, and I had to…I had to…it wasn't her, you know? And then Dragon tried to kill us because you could be an S-class threat, and you'd been there too long. But it's okay now, that hasn't happened and you don't need to be quarantined, and we can warn everybody and leave before she even attacks." My mind swam with thoughts. If this was an illusion, it was **really weird**. Trying to focus, I thought, _What would Taylor do?_ That was easy; she'd think about the practical implications.

"Vicky, if they were going to quarantine me, and you were with me…does that mean you were there long enough for the Simurgh to get to you?"

"Well, maybe, but I feel fine, and even the Simurgh couldn't plan for _this_ , right?" I had to admit, she did have a point. But what if the Simurgh was the one that caused this? I shook away the thought. Time travel was not something she could do. Unless…

"You're probably right. Do you know of any tinkers specializing in time effects who were at the battle?"

"Oh! You think she might have copied their tech? No, I've never heard of a Tinker who could do anything like this anywhere in the world, let alone in Brockton Bay."

"Oh, good." I've supervised or learned about most prominent Tinkers in the world, and I'd never heard of one who could do anything like this either, but I thought that Vicky might have been from an alternate timeline where one existed. Strike that theory, meaning **really weird** illusion was the leading idea. Well, at least I was pretty sure Vicky wasn't just a manifestation fulfilling my adolescent desires. She had far too much strange backstory for that.

"So sis, you said you remembered too. What do you remember?"

I smiled. "Well, I actually got pulled out of my wedding reception." Vicky's face lit up.

"Cool, you're from far enough that we got married! You have to tell me all about it!"

 **A/N: So apparently I have a thing for ending with wham lines. I like to see them as less-evil cliffhangers—ideally they still hook the reader for next time, but don't involve torturous waiting and guessing.**

 **Attributions: Amelia is from** _ **Amelia**_ **by TanaNari, and Victoria is from** _ **Memories of a Simurgh Victim - Diabolus ex Machina**_ **by Thinker6.**


	6. 1-6: Amelia Claire Lavere

My brain temporarily shut down as I went over Vicky's last two sentences, trying to understand what I had misheard.

"Ooh, was it a nice big wedding like I've always wanted? Or did you get your way and have that small, private wedding you've always talked about? Oh, and tell me about my dress, I hope it was gorgeous." There it was again. What was with this Stranger? They seemed to be deliberately going out of their way to make the illusion weird. I focused on the oddity, but nope—didn't wake up.

"Vicky, I wasn't marrying you," I said, as gently as I could. A dark look passed over my sister's face and I suddenly backed up, afraid, as she stood up floated a couple inches off the ground, her fist clenched.

"Who forced you to marry them? Tell me who it was and I'll go kick their ass right now!" I struggled to get my fear under control without the Taylor there to support me. But why was I so afraid all of the sudden? Oh, right, Vicky still had her aura.

"Just calm down, okay? I wasn't forced into anything." Vicky's eyes had been roving around aimlessly, trying to look for a nonexistent enemy, but now they locked onto mine and I felt more afraid. Despite myself, I started to use my power on the grass beneath me, congealing it into one organism and spreading my control across the lawn. I smiled internally as an earthworm and 48 millipedes were added to my totally unnecessary backup plan. Even if Taylor wasn't here and I knew, intellectually, that I shouldn't be terrified out of my wits, my wife was still supporting me in spirit.

"I get it now." Vicky's voice was quiet, dangerous. "I knew this was too good to be true. This is just another one of those flashbacks, only this time, she's not letting me wake up easily." She shook her fist at the air and I could _feel_ the rage flowing off her. "Well I won't let you trick me, you bitch! I've found out your plan! I know what this is!" A number of other students looked our way as they heard Vicky's shouts. _Shit_.

"Vicky, please, calm down. This can't be a dream, I have memories of my own. How could I be alive in your dream?"

"That's just what she'd make you say!" God, she sure sounded paranoid. This was why it was great when we'd killed the Simurgh. I'd almost forgotten how pants-shittingly terrifying it was trying to plan around her.

"Look, even if this is enemy action of some kind, shouting at the sky isn't going to make them stop." Yeah, I was pretty sure the Stranger that hit us at the wedding wouldn't just let us free if I claimed to know what was going on. _Wait. I just told Vicky that if I'm real, she couldn't be in a dream, but if I was hit by a Stranger, wouldn't that imply that she isn't real? How can I even tell?_

"You almost fooled me there, but I won't listen to you! You're not really my sister, She made you. I'm not going to let you fool me anymore." Vicky rocketed towards me, fist winding up for a punch. I barely had time to think _Okay, this can't be happening_ as my fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in in response to another overwhelming wave of fear. Then the ground beneath us rose up and swallowed us whole. Vicky plowed through the grass-creature that had eaten her with ease, but she was stopped cold by the thick tree root that slammed into her stomach, breaking her shield and allowing the remaining nearby grass to wrap her tight.

"Sorry, sis," I said as I grabbed her wrist before her shield could regenerate and put her to sleep. The danger gone, I had the grass-thing around us return to its normal state, then sighed as I felt that the entire lawn on this side of the school and several trees would die within a day, their stored nutrients spent. I could just see the headlines—Gaia—no, wait—Panacea Reveals New Extent of Powers by Killing School Plants. Landscapers Commit Suicide. Oh, well, I'd just have to be sure to come back tonight and feed the landscape some nutrients. My first thought was bugs, but again, I remembered that wasn't an option.

I turned my attention to Vicky, trying to figure out what had caused her to attack like that. No matter how paranoid, the Vicky I knew would _never_ have attacked me. Add in that she claimed to love me, _and_ she had just come from a Simurgh attack where Dragon tried to quarantine her, and I had adequate reason to get over my distaste and take a look at her brain.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I wasn't sure which, I couldn't find anything wrong. The "rage" portion of her brain was tied more strongly to the part of the brain identifying enemies than the Vicky I was used to, but if this Vicky was from an alternate timeline where the Simurgh attacked Brockton Bay, that could be entirely reasonable. I couldn't find anything to suggest outside influence or tampering, so I decided to let it go.

As for the other issue, it turned out my sister did have memories of the two of us confessing our love for each other and planning to get married. _Wow, I can just imagine how happy I would have been if this was actually me in school and not me from several years later._ Of course, I'd pretty much gotten over my crush by now, and I was totally in love with Taylor. _Plus I'm married now, and I can't cheat on my wife, can I?_ Still, this would make things awkward for the duration of the illusion, or whatever was going on. I gently woke Vicky up, keeping my hand around her wrist just to be safe. Judging by the wave of emotions she felt as she came to consciousness, she took it to mean more than that.

"Sis, I'm sorry, I'm in love with someone else. I don't know if this is a Stranger attacking me, or the Simurgh attacking you but dragging me into it somehow, even though there's no way she could do anything where I'm from, or whatever, but it wouldn't work out. You're still my sister, and I still love you, but not like that."

Vicky struggled with her emotions and settled on sorrow before moving in to hug me. "I'm sorry for attacking you, sis. I should have known this was real, the other dreams didn't feel like this, and I promised I'd never attack you. You're obviously a different person from the one who agreed to marry me, but it's going to be so hard not to have you-her around."

"I know how you feel, the girl I'm in love with hasn't even met me yet. Well, assuming this is real." I hugged her back. "If you want to tell the difference between us, you can call me Amelia. It's my birth name, and everyone calls me that nowadays anyway."

Vicky pulled back. "Okay." She stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you, Amelia. I'm Victoria. I always wanted a little sister." I laughed a little, remembering our childhood.

"My Daddy said not to talk to strangers. Or Strangers, but I don't know why he said it twice."

"But we're not strangers, we're going to be sisters."

Reaching out my hand to shake hers, I said, "Hi then. It's nice to meet you."

"What is going on here?" The principal's voice demanded. "There's no fighting on school grounds. Do I need to call your parents, or the PRT?"

…

It went surprisingly well. I managed to convince her that we were just fooling around. She seemed mollified by the fact that no permanent damage had been done to school grounds by my grass monster stunt, although she said she was still going to write home to our parents. I really needed to think of somewhere I could get enough biomass to fix it before it all died. When we were once again left alone, I said, "So sis, how are we going to resolve our incompatible relationships?"

"I don't know, Amelia, but I know a good first step. I promised the Simurgh that we'd kick her ass. Let's work out our frustration by beating up some S-class threats."

"Good idea. Let's round up a few of my friends and then go after the Slaughterhouse Nine." _And get my other sister with violent urges back._ At first I'd taken her in because she was useful more than anything, but she'd really grown on me.

"The Slaughterhouse Nine aren't something to joke about," spoke a new voice. I looked up and saw Dean. _Right, the empath in a relationship with my sister, who no longer loves him. This is going to be complicated_.

 **A/N: Apparently I failed at avoiding fight scenes. Oh, well. In addition to the two borrowed characters, you may notice that several lines in the last few paragraphs are lifted directly from Thinker6's excellent omake. I was actually planning on switching to a new character for the next chapter, but that omake inspired me.**


	7. 1-7: Victoria Dallon

Dean was probably right, it was incredibly morbid of me to joke about fighting S-class threats like the Nine. But I had just come from a fight with the Simurgh, after all, so it was sort of on my mind. On the other hand, the tone of voice she had used had seemed pretty serious. "I don't think she was joking, were you, Amy…elia?" I caught myself at the last minute. I saw my darling sister grimace. _Damn, she must have noticed_. I needed to remember that Amelia wasn't exactly _my_ Amy. And hey, Amy had always been the smart, reasonable one, so if Amelia thought going after the Slaughterhouse Nine was something we could do, who was I to argue? I'd sworn to stand by Amy for my whole life, and if Amelia was the closest thing I could get to my Amy, I'd just have to protect and follow her too. The two of us were some of the greatest heroes in the world, so it wasn't too far-fetched. "My powers are pretty awesome—I mean, my force field can stop anything—and Amelia's really awesome too! You should have seen the grass monster she used to stop me a moment ago! If we get a few friends who are just as awesome, there's no way they'll be able to stop us!" Amelia winced again and Dean frowned. _Oh no, what did I say this time?_ Then I realized, _Of course, she must feel bad for fighting me, even though it was totally my fault and not hers, and she didn't even hurt me._ Amy was always too self-sacrificing. I hurried to make sure Dean didn't get the wrong idea. "She didn't even hurt me or anything. Just whoomp, up goes the carpet of grass and grabs me, and crack! and a root knocks out my shield, and Amelia grabs my wrist and calms me down. And now you can't even tell the grass did anything!"

Dean looked equal parts worried and exasperated. "Vicky, what were you doing that Amy needed to stop you by making a _grass monster_?" His voice rose a few notes at the end. A pit of guilt settled into my stomach. I couldn't exactly reply _Trying to kill her because I thought she was just an illusion made by the Simurgh_. The guilt was joined by horror as I remembered that Dean would be able to sense the guilt and get even more worried, and then he'd tell one of the assholes with the Protectorate, and then they'd lock me up for being a Simurgh victim…

"It was nothing, really, we were just playing around a little," Amelia said. _That's right, Amelia's the only one who knows I was fighting the Simurgh at all, and she'd never betray me._ But then I remembered, this wasn't the same Amy. I mentally shook off the thought. _No, no version of my sister would ever betray me._ It was just impossible. "I'm tired of cafeteria food, so I made some lunch for us out of this tree, and that got me to experimenting with some other plants. Victoria offered to test it for me. Of course, I realized after we did it that doing it out here where we could freak people out was a bad idea. We've already been chewed out by the principal, so can you just let it drop?" Dean looked quite taken aback at Amelia's impassioned rant. _Ha, go sis! That'll show him for butting in_.

"Okay, fine, but, uh, are you absolutely sure nothing weird has gone on?" Dean glanced around. "Both of your emotions are really weird. I think you might have been Mastered." I started to panic a little. _Oh no, I didn't realize he'd be able to detect the Simurgh's effects_. Then I panicked more as I remembered he could sense the panic. "It's not anything inhuman or unnatural or anything like that, you just feel different. It's almost like you've lived through a few extra months since I saw you in first period." _Oh, that's where he was going with this._

"Did you time travel too?" I asked. He smiled.

"Ah, no, but…two of the others did. Was it both of you, or just Victoria?"

"Oh, Amelia time travelled too."

"Well, maybe. At first I thought a Stranger had gotten me, but then Victoria said she also remembered the future, so I don't know any more. If we did time travel, though, we're not from the same timeline," my sister said. "What two others think they've time travelled? Unless, I'd totally understand if they don't want to give away their secrets just yet."

Dean smiled a little sadly. "I don't think I should tell you. I trust the two of you, of course, but if you've time travelled from alternate universes, well…" He obviously didn't want to say that he didn't actually trust us. _Great, we get out of the Simurgh quarantine and people still don't trust us_. "I think it should be safe to try to figure out if any of you are from the same timeline. Have you heard of Hypnos? Or have the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked the city?" I shook my head no, confused, but Amelia answered,

"Yes, the Nine attacked the city." _Oh, maybe that's why she wants to hunt them down._

"Oh, were you during the attack, or after? And have you heard of a Ward named Weaver?"

"That was a long time ago. It's my turn for a question. Have either of them heard of Pantheon?"

"Well, neither mentioned it to me, but I can ask. We're going to take them to the PRT building, run them through Master/Stranger protocols after school. You two should come in as well. Maybe the Protectorate's Thinkers can figure out what's going on." _No, no way are we going to sit in and let them observe us._ Fortunately, my wonderful sister agreed with me.

"We're going to have to decline," Amelia said. "I have better things to do than sit around in M/S protocols all day and let the Protectorate grill me for information."

"Amy, don't make this a problem," Dean said in a placating tone.

"I'm going by Amelia now," she replied, a slight hard edge to her voice.

"Amelia, then. You know the PRT has the authority to hold people who have potentially been affected by Masters and Strangers until they are cleared of influence."

Her voice got harsher. "I know that they need to prove a potential danger, illegal activities, or the inability of the victim to make an informed decision before they can bring someone in against their will. And since you barely have enough evidence to suspect M/S influence at all, there's no way we're going in."

Dean raised his palms up in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm not your enemy." His voice got quieter. "I hope I'm not."

I smiled a little. "You're not our enemy, Dean. You're my best friend in the Wards and you've been my boyfriend for months. It's not you we don't trust, it's the system."

"Dean, we should probably eat our lunch," Amelia said, clearly done with the conversation.

Dean still hesitated, so I said, "Go on, get back to your other time-travelling friends. I'll talk to you later, but I need to talk to my sister now." This seemed good enough for him.

"Okay, talk to you later. And no more scaring the faculty."

….

It was really hard to sit through the rest of school, coming right off of an Endbringer battle only to find myself in a weird alternate timeline where my sister didn't love me. Well, not the same way as before, at least. _Is this what PTSD feels like_? I'd been in plenty of fights before, but not anything super traumatizing or dangerous—to me at least—until the Endbringer battle. Well, I guess I was a wreck after fighting that bitch in the bank, but this was several times worse. I even got called out by the teacher a few times for not paying attention.

After school, I met Amelia at the usual spot. "So, sis, where to now? Straight to meet this 'Taylor' you were telling me about, or are we going to go home and drop off our bags first?" My heart panged. _Please say we're going home_. I knew she was in love with someone else, but I wasn't sure I could handle meeting her just yet.

"I will not go back to that house," Amelia said. I was shocked by the venom in her voice. "I know you said your Carol loved both of us, but honestly, mine was so bad that I find that really hard to believe. I haven't had to live with her for years, I'm not going to do it again." I was really starting to feel sorry for this Amelia. She hadn't had the loving mother we had had, and she hadn't even had my love to tide her through. I felt a pang of loss as I realized what this meant. I said I'd follow Amy to the ends of the earth.

"I'm going with you, of course."

"Victoria, Amy, don't fly off on me." _Mom? What is she doing here? She never has time to pick us up from school_. Beside me, Amelia tensed, as I turned and replied, waving Mom over to join us.

"Mom, what are you doing here?"

"I recently realized how lucky I am to have you—both of you—and I thought I would be nice and give you a ride home for a change. Come on, I have some things to tell you when we have a little more privacy."

"We're a little busy." Mom looked shocked, and I turned to look at Amelia.

"Amy, this is really important," Mom said.

"I'm sure we can spare a little bit of time, right?" I asked. "Besides, I need to get stuff from home before we go." There was no way I was leaving home without more clothes, for one thing.

"Go? Where are you going?" Mom asked. _Uh, well. Maybe I should leave this one to Amelia. It's her idea, after all_.

Amelia looked really conflicted, several emotions playing out across her pretty freckled face— _which I'll never get to kiss again_ —until she let out a heavy sigh. I just wanted to hug her and reassure her that everything would be alright, but I knew it wouldn't help. "Oh, alright. I was going to have to talk to you at some point anyways." If anything, Mom looked more worried, but she didn't say anything, and we headed to the car.

"First of all, this is going to sound crazy, but don't freak out." _Well this sounded familiar._ "I've travelled back in time from several weeks in the future, during an Endbringer attack. I know this is hard to believe, but the important part is…" I cut her off, excited. Well, I'm not sure excitement was the right word for finding out my Mom had also come from the same horrible timeline as me, but I wasn't at peace.

"Me too! Was it the Simurgh for you? Last I saw you Dragon was flying you out of the city, did you make it out alright?"

"You too? Oh my God, thank you, I'm so sorry." Mom pulled over to the side of the rode and I saw in the rear-view mirror that she was crying. "I'm so sorry for leaving you there for Dragon to kill, I didn't find out the phones were bombs until we were already out of the city, and by then it was too late." She unbuckled and hugged me, then reached back to hug Amelia where she was riding in the back. Amelia flinched away, but then let Mom hug her. She didn't hug her back, though. "I'm sorry for being such a bad mother, Amy, I know you're not your father, and I never should have treated you like you were just a…a ticking timebomb waiting to go off. You're my daughter, and I love you just as much as Vicky."

"You're too late." Mom jerked back to the front seat like Amelia had hit her. "The first time around now, that would have been the best thing I wanted…" She looked at me. "My second-greatest desire in the world, but I've also time travelled, from a lot farther in a different future from Vicky. I've grown up, I've…I've even gotten married. I appreciate that you're trying to be a good mother, but you're too late to be my Mom." Her voice trembled on the last part of her declaration. Mom was sobbing openly now, and I started to feel enraged. _Who did Amelia think she was, saying those things to Mom? This wasn't her Mom, how dare she make her cry like that? I wouldn't let her hurt Mom anymore, I'd make her stop!_ But then Amelia grabbed her backpack, opened the door, and started quickly walking away. I could feel myself calming down a little as I realized there was nothing to fight this time, but I was still angry.

"Don't listen to her, Mom, she's not the real Amy anyway. She's from a different timeline where Mom was mean and terrible. I know you were trying your best, and the real Amy does too. You even stood up to Dragon to protect her when it counted, and you gave up several years of freedom just to hug her, to comfort her when she needed it." I hugged Mom as tightly as I could without hurting her. "I love you, Mom. You're a great mom, trust me. And I'm so happy to be out of there so I can be with you again."

After a really long hug, Mom pulled away and wiped her tears. "I'm so glad you're out of there, Victoria, but I'm also sad you had to go through that at all. I thought I was the only one who had gone back in time, but at least then you wouldn't have had to go through the horrors of the Endbringer attack. It won't happen again, I promise. I've alerted the Protectorate, although of course they said it wasn't enough evidence to act on, but we're going to go on a family vacation somewhere on the west coast a week before the attack, and stay there until it's over. I'm not making you go through that again."

"Don't worry, Mom, it's okay, we lived through it. I'm alright." Mom sat up straighter and wiped her eyes one more time.

"Well. So. Amy. To think, all those times I was waiting for a blowup, and it finally happens just when I try to reach out to her. Of course. I'm just doomed to be a bad mother to her."

"Mom, don't say that. You've been a wonderful Mom to both of us. That girl's not Amy. She said to call her Amelia to keep them separate." I saw Mom flinch at the name. Of course, another thing Amelia had done to hurt my mom, calling herself by the name the villain gave her. I didn't have a problem with my Amy being the daughter of a villain because she chose to be a hero, to be part of our family, but if Amelia was accepting the name Marquis had given her, could she really be trusted to be a good guy? _Maybe Dean was right. Maybe we shouldn't trust the unknown time-travelers._ Still, I wasn't going to go to the Protectorate, of course.

"Vicky, I really haven't been a good mom to her, though. Maybe to you, I'm glad you think so, but Amy…Amelia's right. I've always mistreated her since, in the back of my mind, she reminds me of Marquis sometimes. With that power of hers, she could go so wrong. I know she never does anything but healing with it, but I still couldn't help but wonder, what if she went bad, what could she do?" _Amelia wasn't limiting herself to healing anymore_. The thought made me a bit uneasy. "I know it's not fair to her, but I couldn't help it."

"Mom, I know you tried your best. You didn't have to take her in when you arrested Marquis, but you did out of the kindness of your heart, and you did your best. And it's not your fault she reminded you of your hated enemy. You supported her every time it counted. When we came to you and told you we wanted to get married one day, you were totally supportive, you even looked up what jurisdictions it was legal in and everything."

"I did…you did…what? Married?" Mom exclaimed. "But you're sisters!"

"Yeah, married, it's not like we're biological sisters or anything, so it's not that weird. You've told people that yourself when they tried to say something about us." My eyes narrowed. "Wait, I thought you were from the same timeline as me, you should know this."

"Victoria, you never told me you wanted to get married to your sister. That's just ridiculous!"

"But you said you had just escaped the Simurgh! You said Dragon flew you out and left us with explosive phones to kill us once we were gone!"

"Yes, the Simurgh attacked you and Amy while you were at school, and a Case 53 was making evil clones of capes, and she'd captured Crystal and made clones of me and others, and you…well, you know."

Now I was confused and worried. "All of that happened to me too. Everything during the attack was exactly the same, but before it was different. How would that happen?"

Mom was quiet. "Vicky, I don't think we were from different timelines. I think Amy messed with your mind, gave you false memories."

"No! She'd never do that! You're just like…you're just like the clone." I scrambled back in a panic, opening the latch on the door and only failing to tumble outside because I could fly instead. "Stay away from me, you Enemy! You're not my Mom traveled back in time, you're one of the clones somehow traveled back in time!" I flew up. Maybe I could crush the roof of the car on top of her. Then she stepped out, making it easier for me.

"Victoria, I'm not a clone! Think about it! I don't have any deformities, we've been over this already! It's not like I hate Amy, I just apologized to her and cried when she left, for God's sake! Get ahold of yourself!" Well, if she wasn't going to defend herself, that would just make it easier for me. But as I prepared to charge, I thought back to the last time I had considering killing someone who looked like the clones, and remembered how horrible I had felt when I realized it was really Mom. Then I examined the woman in front of me closely. She didn't _appear_ to have any deformities. If only Amy was here to check…but the woman had run her off. No, wait, that was ridiculous, all she'd done had apologize, and Amelia had rejected her and freaked out. There was only one other way to be sure. I floated up another ten feet and called back.

"Show me your powers, and don't you dare attack me."

"Victoria, you're being ridiculous. There are people watching us now." I just glared. Sighing, she turned herself into a stationary ball of energy, then turned back into a person and formed her normal blades of light in her hands. I guess…I guess it could be Mom. I was still wary, but also extremely glad I had decided not to attack her.

"Okay, I guess I can trust you a little," I said, floating down and getting back in the car. I wasn't completely comfortable as she got back in, but she didn't attack me immediately; another point in her favor. "But don't try to tell me Amy messed with my mind, because she totally didn't."

"Victoria, your memories of agreeing to marry your sister…they can't be real. They never happened."

"Of course that happened! The Simurgh must have messed with your mind too, just like she messed with Amy's to make her forget."

"She messed with Amy's mind?"

"Amy told me she couldn't remember when we confessed our love, or when we promised to be there for each other forever, or anything."

Mom sighed. "Victoria, maybe you should consider that the Simurgh might have messed with your mind, not ours, even if Amy didn't. If two of us don't remember, but you think you do, you're outnumbered." I tried to think logically about this. While I knew Amy would never mess with my mind, I'd also never heard of the Simurgh being able to give people false memories before.

"Mom? Has the Simurgh ever been known the rewrite people's memories before?"

"Well, no, it's never been recorded, but nobody really knows what she does to the minds of her targets," Mom said, clearly trying to be reassuring. But that just worried me even more, because it sounded like _someone_ had to have false memories, and if the Simurgh couldn't make them…Amy had said she had messed up when healing my brain. I knew, Amy _never_ messed up her healing, but she'd also never practiced healing brains, she had talked about that, and if there was any time she could mess up, it was while the Simurgh was messing with her.

"It's horrible, I…I don't want to believe it, but…Amy had to fix my brain after the gym collapsed on us, and she said she was afraid she might have messed up, and…and she's never worked with brains before, and the Simurgh was screwing with her mind at the time…so, maybe, maybe the Simurgh made her screw up?" I said. Tears started forming in my eyes. "But…I'm so certain the memories are real. How could they be fake?" And the only one who could possibly tell me otherwise was…Amelia. And I couldn't trust her; she wasn't actually Amy.

"Victoria, I'm so sorry honey," Mom said. This time she leaned forward and hugged me, but I pulled back much more quickly than she had before.

"No. I…I can't believe it, I refuse to believe it. You must have come from a different timeline than me. It's weird that the exact same things happened in both of our Simurgh attacks, but that's all it is—a coincidence. It's not like we can say it's unlikely, we don't even know how the time travel or alternate universes or whatever worked anyway."

"Victoria, I don't think…"

"You're not going to change my mind, and that's final." I flared my aura a bit to punctuate the statement. Mom looked angry, but as I let the aura die back down, she mostly just looked concerned. We sat there for a few awkward seconds before she said,

"Okay, fine. Can we just stop talking about it, and be happy that we escaped a Simurgh attack? We can go home, play some powered baseball in the backyard. I'll call Aunt Sarah, see if I can convince her to let your cousins come over even if it's a school night. I want to do something fun as a family."

I smiled a bit. "That sounds fun." _Let's put this whole Simurgh business behind us and celebrate_. But I couldn't help but realize that Amy wouldn't be at this "family" event. At least it was her choice this time, but it still didn't feel right. I hoped the frown on Mom's face was her thinking the same thing.

 **A/N:** **MoaSV Victoria is really tough to write. We only really get to see her in the middle of an Endbringer battle, while the Simurgh is still messing with her head. I figured she'd still have a hair-trigger temper and "Dalek" mode like in Thinker6's omake, but without the Simurgh actively prodding her, she'd be able to back down and occasionally** _ **not**_ **make a horrible decision.**

 **I reread the Victoria parts of MoaSV in preparation for writing this chapter, and boy are they dark. Really good, very well-written, and surprisingly touching, but holy shit are they dark. Trying to capture that mood is not super-fun to write. Too bad I've got a bunch of other things that need to happen before I can get back to Madison. At least her version of feels doesn't come along with implied mindfuckery.**

 **You may have noticed that I broke my "only viewpoint characters" rule by having Carol time travel as well. That's because, while the "Sauron getting a Death Star if Frodo gets a lightsaber" thing is often bad (and it's a stupid way to put it—see my account for my cracky version of the idea), I do agree that the story has the potential to be more interesting if I create as many problems as I solve. Thus, for each hero or "good" character who time traveled because they're the viewpoint in a story, I'm potentially bringing one person to oppose them, and vice-versa. Here, Carol and Victoria aren't necessarily opposed, but Victoria has the potential to create problems, while Carol might solve them (or she would have if Amelia hadn't been there as well). Don't worry, I do generally like happy endings, so I don't plan on making this fic super dark—in fact, that's why I had to cause** _ **some**_ **extraneous problems, as I was a little worried all the time travelers would just stomp over all opposition (except Scion, of course. Even with Missy having seen him defeated once, he's still terrifying). Note that the opponent doesn't necessarily have to appear in the story, they just have to be canon to it. This way I can exploit my self-imposed rules in such a way that I can get two canon villains so far, instead of the no villains in** _ **Hey Missy!**_ **or the future &inDetroit!villains of **_**Nyctophobia**_ **.**


	8. 1-8: Daniel Hebert

_How did I get to work? Wasn't I just at home, sitting in my chair after Kurt, Lacy, and Alex walked out?_ I could buy that I had fallen asleep after sitting down and brooding—it wouldn't be the first time—but how could I have gotten to work? _Am I dreaming?_ I pinched myself, and sure enough, it hurt. And besides, I definitely didn't feel like I was asleep. Still, I was definitely at work, and it was daytime. Whatever was going on, I had a job to do. _So…what was I working on?_ Paperwork was sprawled all over my desk, so I was obviously in the middle of a project, but I couldn't remember what it was. Confused, I adjusted my glasses, picked up a sheet of paper, and leaned down to read it. It seemed like the Boardwalk was going to build a Johnny Rockets, and the construction company had some open spots. This could be a rare lucky break for a few of the unemployed dockworkers. Construction was one of the jobs that the dockworkers could often find, since it didn't require as many specialized skills as other jobs—just a basic level of competence and good physical fitness. It looked like they wanted six people to start work on…April 21st? _Why would they put in a work order for so far in the future?_ Oh well, I wasn't going to question it. _Now who would be good for this job?_ I started to look through the employment records to see who needed work. _Isoroku? But I just set him up with a job yesterday. Did it fall through?_ I looked more closely at the records and saw that no, Isoroku had successfully completed the job and gotten a decent recommendation from his supervisor, but it was only a temporary thing, and now he needed more work. _What? How could he have received his final paycheck on March 9_ _th_ _—several weeks into the future?_ I grabbed my calendar, and every day had been crossed off up until April 7th. _Someone has to be messing with me. But why would they try to convince me it was April 8_ _th_ _?_ I flipped through the calendar, and all of the events written down did seem like things that could happen, but my schedule was generally pretty predictable—it wouldn't be too hard to make up a plausible schedule. _But why?_

I stood up, pushed in my chair, and walked out of my tiny office. "Hey, Frank, can I see your calendar for a minute? I think somebody pranked mine, put some fake events on there."

Frank didn't even look up from his solitaire game. _How can that man have the nerve not to even do his job when there are so many dockworkers out of work?_ Oh well, I wasn't his boss, it wasn't my problem. In a bored voice, Frank said, "Sure thing man, take it," and vaguely gestured towards his bulletin board with his left hand.

"Thank you." I crossed the room to his bulletin board, removed the tack, and carried the calendar back to my room, looking at it thoughtfully. _Now this is weird._ Frank didn't cross out each day like I did—I assumed he was too lazy—but his calendar was turned to the month of April. I flipped back to January and compared it to mine. Of course, Frank didn't have any of the personal events I had marked down—a doctor's appointment for Taylor, another meeting with the mayor—but there were a few union-wide events I had marked down, and sure enough they were all there as well. _That's some persistent prankster. With a very strange sense of humor. Really, I have no idea how this could be considered funny. It's just strange_. I walked back into the other room. "Doesn't this seem odd to you? Your calendar is turned to April!"

"No, man, it's fine."

"Are you even listening to me? This calendar is full of events from January to April, and mine is crossed out until April. Why would someone want to do that? Frank? FRANK!"

"Geeze, man!"

"It's solitaire. There's no time limit. Listen to me."

"Okay, fine, what's the problem?" I lay both calendars down on his desk and pointed at Taylor's doctor's appointment.

"This is the problem. Somebody wrote down a bunch of fake events in my calendar, and then crossed out all the days until April." Frank gave me a very strange look.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes, I'm feeling okay! Why would you even ask that? What does it have to do with this calendar prank?"

"Today _is_ April 8th. _You_ wrote all those things in your calendar."

"Oh, you're in on it!" I threw my hands in the air, then marched back into my room before I got too upset and started raising my voice. _But if it was all just a prank, why would they have gone to the effort to rearrange my office?_ Because, as I looked around, I noticed that nothing was in quite the same place as it had been last Friday. _But if it's not a prank, what could possibly have happened?_ Suddenly I really wanted some reassurance that it was actually December. I picked up the landline and called Kurt.

"Hi, Danny, I'm a little busy right now, so can you make it quick?"

"Don't worry, Kurt, I've just got a question to ask. This is going to sound weird, but I think somebody's playing a prank on me, and I want to make sure I'm actually right. What's today's date?" Hopefully Kurt would think I was just worried I was a day or two off, and not several months.

"Today's April 8th. Friday."

"Are you sure you're not pulling my leg too? I thought it was Monday." _In December_ , I didn't add.

"No, Danny, I'm sure, it's Friday. Now, I've really got to go."

"Okay, no problem, thank you Kurt."

"Talk to you later, Danny." He hung up, and I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes. _What the hell is going on?_ I trusted Kurt not to mess with me, not like that, but how could it possibly be April? My thoughts turned to the cape scene. Was there a cape who caused amnesia, who'd targeted me for some reason? It was the only explanation I could think of other than a ridiculous, stupidly elaborate prank. _Lisa would know_. I didn't want to be overheard, so I walked outside, glanced around to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear me, and reached for my cell phone.

It wasn't there. _This is bad. This is very bad_. Coil wanted me to have it on me at all times, and I **really** didn't want him angry at me for not listening to him. Or worse, for **losing** __it, since I now had no idea where it was. I **really** hoped I had left it at home, because if anybody else had gotten ahold of it, I didn't want to think about what they might be able to find out from the phone numbers I had programmed into it. _Why hadn't I just memorized all the numbers? It would have been so much safer!_ I resolved to delete all the contacts as soon as I found my phone again.

Fortunately, I had memorized Lisa's number, but I didn't want to call her on my work phone if I could help it, so I walked to the nearest payphone and called her. "Who is it?" She asked. That threw me for a loop. With her power, I had assumed Lisa would know who was calling even though I wasn't using my cell. I guess she just didn't have enough information to even guess.

"It's Danny. Something really weird is going on, and you were the only one I could think of who might be able to tell me what's going on."

"Give me a minute, I want to get somewhere more private." I waited while Lisa presumably walked away from her…colleagues. "Danny Hebert, right?"

"Yes." _I didn't know Lisa knew anyone else named Danny._

"Let me guess. You just travelled back in time?"

"How did you…wait, no, last I remember it was December of last year. I thought it might be a cape that caused amnesia, and you're telling me it was time travel?" I didn't even bother to ask how she knew. This was **Lisa**.

"That's interesting. You're not the only one to time travel, but the I traveled back in time, not forward. And not all of us seem to have come from the same timeline. How exactly do you know me?"

"Coil forced me to work for him, remember? And you were my liaison to him."

"No actually, I don't remember. We're obviously from different timelines as well."

"Great. Now I have no idea what to do. I was hoping you would be able to fill me in on what I missed the past few months. Right now I am stuck in the future with no idea what I am supposed to be doing at the moment. Several months' amnesia isn't easy to deal with."

"Hmm. You know what? Why don't you come up with some excuse to head home. Bring anything that might be able to figure out what you missed—calendars, day planners, records from work, or anything else you might be able to think of. I'll meet you at your house and we can try to piece together what you missed. My power should let me fill in some of the gaps."

"Thank you so much for this, Lisa. I have no idea what I would do otherwise. I'll have to make you something for free once I get some equipment."

"Make me something…are you a Tinker? No, wait, we'll talk about this when we get to your house. I have to explain what I can to the rest of my…coworkers, and then I'll be right over." With that, she ended the call. I walked back into the office and gathered up anything I thought could be useful. Then, I told Frank I didn't feel well and was going to take the day off. He probably expected that, given my seemingly nonsensical questions earlier.

…..

As I pulled into my driveway, I noticed the house looked eerily normal. It was as if nothing had changed. Walking into the house, I noticed a few things were different on the inside. The calendar on the refrigerator had been flipped ahead. I remembered washing dishes last night, but the kitchen sink was full with dirty dishes once again. My room was missing a desk that I had bought to aid with my Tinkering. There were a few other changes, some of which I was sure indicated that whoever the Daniel Hebert who had lived here before I "arrived" had been, he wasn't a Tinker. As far as I could tell, other changes just indicated the progression of time.

Before I had completely explored the differences in my house, the doorbell rang, and I let Lisa in. I noticed it was just after noon, so I offered her a sandwich. We began our discussion in the kitchen as I made the sandwich. I started, "I thought of something as I was driving over here. If you don't remember Coil forcing me to work for him, how do you know who I am? We met when Coil assigned you to be my liaison with him." In my years of work for the Dockworkers' Union, I have gained a little bit of skill at reading people, so I could tell the question made Lisa uncomfortable.

"Actually, in my timeline Taylor and I worked in a soup kitchen together."

"Really? So it wasn't cape-related at all? I'm glad Taylor started to get out more, but that doesn't seem like something you would do."

Lisa gave what I thought was an uncertain smile. "I thought I would try something different, meet people who weren't in the villain business for a change. I'm not sure if I ever told you, but I was on the streets for a while, and sometimes it's nice to give back to one of the soup kitchens I used to get food from." Then I thought she seemed to get a little more serious, although when she spoke her voice was almost overly casual. "Have you seen anything indicating whether or not Taylor worked at the soup kitchen in this timeline?"

I folded up the finished sandwich and handed it to Lisa. "There was nothing about it on the calendars I've seen, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Still, it makes it more likely that Taylor doesn't know me. That could be awkward; I'll have to make sure I leave before she gets here so we don't have to explain who I am and what I'm doing in your house." Oddly enough, although Lisa was discussing a potential complication in our lives, she seemed somewhat relieved.

"Last time I told her you were a friend from work. I said I had a second job in air conditioning repair. I can use the same excuse if I need to, but I think I should try to avoid springing the news about the job and you at the same time. It would be kind of fast to make a new friend at a new job."

"Yes, of course. And anyway, you might not want to 'start a new job' (she made air quotes with her fingers) at all. I think Coil is from my timeline, which means he's not from yours and has no knowledge of you. We should try to keep it that way. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's hear your story first before we start making any plans." That sounded reasonable to me, so I proceeded to explain how I had discovered I had the power to sense the presence of capes near me, tell them apart after repeated examination, and gain Tinker powers by spending time in the proximity of Tinkers. I told the story of how Coil figured out I was a Tinker by my spending habits and "recruited me" by threatening Taylor; of how Dragon's analysis programs figured out I was a Tinker the same way, forcing me to hire Quinn Calle to advise me on how to convince the Protectorate I had joined Toybox and not a villain group; of how I decided to help Lisa and the Undersiders with their situation by pretending to be a loyal asset of Coil's, hiring minions, and making a name for myself; and a little bit about the inventions and labs I developed in my time in Coil's employ. I finished by describing how Lisa had found out that Toybox would be in Houston, and how I was planning on driving down there. This is just an overview, of course; I went into more detail on each subject at the time.

"Did I ever get Taylor transferred to Immaculata in your timeline?"

"No, Taylor was still at Winslow a few months into the future even," Lisa told me sadly. "I know you said you were planning on using the extra money from your villain career to pay for her school. I guess without being a villain, you just didn't have the money. And, well, I got the impression that you never even found out about the bullying. How did you find out in the first place?"

"Oh, that's right, I forgot to mention. You went to Winslow to make sure Taylor wasn't…wasn't going to kill herself. She wasn't, of course, but then we—that is, you and me—were eating lunch on the Boardwalk when three girls from Taylor's school, Emma, Sophia, and Madison, walked up. That's when you realized they were bullying Taylor." There was a pause in the conversation before I continued, "I can't believe I never realized how badly Taylor was doing in school. I mean, I can believe it; I know exactly how and why I didn't realize—I wanted to give her space, to let home be safe, but still, I feel horrible. I'm going to get her out of there as soon as possible." But how? I didn't have the money that had let me pay for her enrollment in Immaculata last time. I _did_ still have all my accumulated Tinker knowledge, thankfully, so I should be able to build microphones and hire Lisa to use them to get evidence that Taylor was being bullied like I had done last time. I wasn't sure where I would get the materials for the microphones; last time it had been getting materials for Tinkering that outed me to Coil and Dragon. I had the thought that I could get the money for Immaculata the same way I did the first time—by robbing the Merchants—but, once again, that would require revealing there was a new Tinker in Brockton Bay, and I knew firsthand how impossible it was to remain an independent Tinker for long.

Lisa spoke up. "Before you get stuck trying to plan for the future, maybe we should try to piece together the past you missed?"

I sighed and dragged my mind away from the conundrums facing it. "Yes, you're right. First of all, I found bills for Taylor being hospitalized for a week, and I need to figure out how and why that happened." As we looked through my records, I was horrified to learn that Taylor had been shoved into a locker full of used tampons and pads by "unknown assailants". There was no doubt in my mind that Emma, Sophia, and Madison had been responsible, but the school had probably covered for them. It was just as I feared—my past self's inaction had allowed the bullying to continue and even get worse. I was definitely going to do _something_.

Lisa and I were engaged in the tedious process of piecing together the more normal portions of my missed life when I sensed an unfamiliar cape entering my range and heading right towards us. Lisa frowned when I told her. "There have been a few new capes entering the scene in Brockton Bay since you last remember, but I don't know why any of them would be coming here. The two most likely possibilities are either someone who knows you from a timeline separate from either of ours, or Taylor having powers in this timeline and ditching school, likely because of the bullying. Either way, I shouldn't be here. I'll stay in your backyard in shouting distance in case something goes wrong, but I didn't bring any weapons with me, so I hope it's not some cape who has a grudge against you from another timeline. The best I'll be able to do is call for help."

"How likely do you think that is? That they want to hurt me, I mean?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I haven't been able to find any logic to who was brought here and from what timeline. The only common element seems to be that we all arrived at the same time. But I should go now." As Lisa got up and left, I tried to reassure myself that I really wasn't the type of person people had grudges with, but it didn't work, because for all I knew, alternate!me was that kind of person. I busied myself cleaning up the records until I only had the calendar for the future set out, to be less suspicious. Whoever was coming, they were familiar with the house, as I could hear them skip the rotting step up to the front door. The door swung open.

"Dad? What are you doing home?" I let out a shaky breath in relief that it wasn't some random villain come to murder me for affronts I didn't even remember committing.

"I'm wondering the same thing myself." I stood up to head to the front door and came face-to-face with Taylor. She just looked at me for a second, then dropped her backpack, ran forward, and hugged me tightly. Confused, I hugged her back just as tightly.

The back door creaked and Taylor pulled away. "Lisa tells me you time travelled as well," Taylor said. "I suspect we have a lot to talk about."

 **A/N: Danny is from** _ **Nematomorpha**_ **by AtriumCarceris, and…well, there's enough clues that you should be able to figure out where Lisa is from if you've read it. And I'm going to be evil and not explain Taylor yet. Mwahaha. Don't worry, next chapter will be Taylor, Danny, or Lisa, (I haven't decided yet), and then all will be explained. Probably.**

 **This counts as my September chapter, btw. Next chapter should be up by October 1 at the latest.**


	9. 1-9: Lisa Wilbourne

The first thing I noticed was the _absence_. For the first time in weeks, months even, that indescribable being just… _wasn't_. I was so used to the presence of the terrifying creature in the back of my _mind_ , my _soul_ , that I just sat in stunned disbelief.

Lisa! Lisa! Lisa, what's going on? Snap out of it!

I shook my head and cleared my thoughts to find Brian waving his hand in front of my face. "Lisa, where are we and who is this?"

Alec spoke up from the couch behind him, "Yeah, you love explaining this crazy shit. What's going on? Why doesn't Brian know who I am?"

I raised my hand. "Just…hold on a minute. Let me think." I had deliberately made it seem like I knew everything, but such a conceit had downsides at times. Like now, when I had no clue what was going on. _Okay, first things first; I need to make sure that_ _ **IT**_ _is actually gone, and not hiding as some sort of trick_. I didn't dare to name _**IT**_ , even in my internal monologue. I tried poking around in my mindspace to find if anything eldritch was lurking—or, you know, I would have if a "mindspace" existed. It felt more like I was just thinking really hard, calling up old memories and imagining normal things. This was actually a positive in the "I'm not currently host to an eldritch being" category, since contact with _**IT**_ was what had caused me to have weird mental visions in the first place. Well, that and Taylor's infinitely more powerful version. (And how something could be infinitely more powerful than something infinitely powerful and beyond understanding, I didn't know, but it was a fact.) Next I tried my power. _Mind clear. No sign of Master/Stranger influence_. Well, that was reassuring to know, although I knew _**IT**_ was often beyond powers. So, best as I could tell, I was truly alone in my head for the first time in months. Awesome! Now to take stock of my physical surroundings.

My eyes had been open all this time, but I had just been staring in a daze. Now I paid full attention to my surroundings for the first time. As I had noticed before, Brian was standing right in front of me, looking concerned. Alec was on the couch, his hands folded under his head as he looked my way. He looked bored, but I knew that the fact he was looking in my direction at all meant he was concerned. We were clearly in the loft. Which didn't make any sense at all, considering Brockton Bay had been mostly destroyed last time I saw it.

 _Building still standing; Brockton Bay has not been destroyed_.

Well, obviously. Thanks, power. A quick glance out the window to see untouched warehouses was enough for it to fill in:

 _Numerous small cracks, general wear-and-tear; Long-term deterioration._

 _Long-term deterioration, no signs of sudden, extreme damage; No Endbringer attack or other S-class threat has affected the entire city._

 _Faded color, mineral deposits, small grooves, soot, discoloration; Damage from sun exposure, rain exposure, minor amounts of snow exposure, soot from polluted air, bird poop_.

I cut off my power. The important part was that, apparently, no Endbringer had attacked. Which meant…what? Either I was in some sort of replica of the Undersiders' old loft that exactly matched the original one, down to the buildings visible outside, or…what? What was that saying, if everything but the implausible scenario can be ruled out, then the implausible scenario must be true? So, undamaged Brockton Bay meant either time travel, which everyone knew to be impossible, or transport to an alternate universe that diverged far more recently than Scion's appearance, which everyone _also_ knew to be impossible. _Come on, power, help me out here_. But then, of course, it decided to be silent. Which was odd in and of itself; it usually offered up at least wild speculations, but this time it said nothing. Almost like when I've tried to get information on other universes than Aleph, or people who didn't exist. Meaning…either the answer didn't exist, or my power was simply completely unaware of it with the information I had now. _Lack of information, more like. Fine. I'll get more information then._

"Alec. What month is it?"

"At least you know him. Why have you never mentioned him before?"

"Are you serious? Are you trying to tell me you time-travelled or something?"

"Hold on, Brian. Alec, just tell me the month."

"Alright, calm down, it's April. April 8th to be exact."

 _Serious facial expression; He's not lying._

 _He's not lying, has no reason to be incorrect; Today is April 8._

 _Today is several months before yesterday; Possible time travel, alternate universe, powerful Stranger effect._

"The most likely explanation here is some sort of time travel, alternate universe, or a ridiculously powerful Stranger effect. But none of that explains how." I asked my power.

No response.

"Wait, you're serious?" Alec asked. "When do you think it is?"  
"October 8th. 2009," Brian said.

"May 19th, 2011," I answered. "It is 2011, right?"

"Yeah, 2011. But seriously? Time travel? I just can't get over this! And why doesn't he know me? I've been in the Undersiders just as long as him!"

"You're one of the Undersiders?" Brian suddenly turned to face Alec more head-on and took a defensive stance. "Were you behind this somehow? What do you want?"

"Hey, man, I just said I have no clue what's going on!" Brian relaxed, just a little. I could feel my power ready to read into Brian's response to Alec, but I decided to save it for the real problem and just ask.

"Brian, you have been in the Undersiders just as long as Alec. Why don't you remember?" Brian backed away from me too, glancing back and forth between me and Alec suspiciously.

"What? We are not villains. Wait! You were just telling me the other day that one of the Undersiders was a full-body controller." Brian turned to face Alec, a dark look coming over his features. "Let her go right now, or you're not going to like what happens." Just then, my phone rang with the ringtone I had programmed to tell me Coil was calling. _Shit! Horrible timing!_

"You told him? Hell, I wasn't even sure you knew, but you actually told him? Dick move!"

I talked over Alec's whining. "Alec, shut up for a minute. Brian, hold off on pummeling him for me. I have to take this, the boss is calling." _It's going to be grating to have to pretend to respect him again after I just got out from under his thumb._ I flipped open my phone.

"Tattletale. Is Taylor Hebert still capable of destroying everything?" _What? Him too? Wait, that means as far as he knows I'm as far beyond him as Taylor is beyond me._

"I thought I was clear before. These matters don't concern you," I said, trying to imitate the cold tone that came so naturally just minutes ago. I think it sounded right, but without _**IT**_ , there was a certain quality missing.

"I will keep that in mind." With that, he hung up the phone. I let my power go a little.

 _He hung up, didn't keep pressing; finds it plausible that I am still_ _ **what**_ _I implied._

 _No attempt to apologize, no conciliatory remarks, no promises to leave us alone in the future; He is not entirely convinced. Plans to investigate himself._

I thought, _Great. I may have just pissed off Coil, and now I'm not far more powerful than him._ "What was that? Even I know that you're supposed to _pretend_ to be polite to the boss! Particularly when it's a supervillain! I thought you were supposed to be good at this stuff, that's why you were the boss's contact!"

"You're working for a supervillain? So this means the Undersiders have a backer?"

I winced at Alec's outburst. "That…may not have been my best move. Yes, Brian, you work for a supervillain. I quit recently; or at least, I thought I had, but it might not have worked out."

"I really don't know why I'm still surprised by this, but are you going to start making sense any time soon? Otherwise I'm just going to get back to my game here." Brian seemed liable to get even more outraged by Alec's nonchalant attitude, so I cut in,

"Brian, do you really think Alec would go through all this to convince you I'm not under his control? Why? Why would he…knock you out or whatever you think happened to get you here in highly suspicious circumstances?"

"Yeah, man, I'm not that much of an idiot. When I take people over, I don't make it so obvious." Alec's comment obviously didn't help, but Brian thought things through and calmed down. A little. He stopped looking like he was going to jump on Alec any second and instead started pacing back and forth.

"Okay, but he just admitted he's a supervillain who can take over people's bodies. Why shouldn't I handcuff him and bring him to the police right now?" _What? Okay, this situation was getting pretty volatile. Maybe I_ should _use my power._

 _Wants to arrest Alec for his crimes, emphasized that he's not a villain; Identifies as a superhero._

 _Willing to believe I'm Mastered rather than accept that I'm working for a supervillain, identifies as a hero; Believes I am a hero working with him._

"I think…whatever happened, it wasn't time travel. Not exactly. Either we ended up in an alternate universe, like Aleph but closer to the ones we each remember, or we ended up in alternate timelines or something." I held up my hand to stop Brian from cutting in. "The point is that some things are different in this universe from the universe you came from, and hopefully from the one I came from as well. You're a hero, right?"

"Yes."

"And you know me as a hero working with you?"

"Yes."

"See, Alec and I remember all three of us being part of the Undersiders for months now."

"That's crazy! Why would I ever be a villain?"

"Your sister. The boss promised to give you the appearance of a legitimate job and help get you custody of your sister." Before he could answer, my phone rang again. "Who is it?"

"It's Danny. Something really weird is going on, and you were the only one I could think of who might be able to tell me what's going on." _I only know one Danny, and he's potentially one of the most important people on the planet. I better take this._

"Give me a minute, I want to get somewhere more private." I put my hand over the microphone. "Sorry, got to take this call. Try not to get in a fight while I'm gone."

…

I walked back out of my room and into the main area of the loft. Alec was playing some racing game, while Brian leaned against the marble countertops with his arms crossed and glared menacingly. The door made an audible click as it swung shut, and both turned to look at me.

"Alec, you couldn't try to explain things while I was taking the call?"

"I don't know what's going on! Besides, I know better than to antagonize him when he's angry." I sighed. The sad thing was, he was probably right. If he had tried to explain things to Brian, he probably would have just made him angrier.

"Brian and I aren't the only ones who got translocated, or whatever this is. I just promised I would help someone piece his life together, but I have a few minutes before I have to leave, so I'll explain what I can. Brian, would you rather go somewhere private?"

With a glare at Alec, Brian said, "That is probably a good idea." I waved him over into my room.

"Okay, just a quick overview. A few months ago our boss contacted us to form a team. He put you in charge, with me as his contact. You, me, Alec, and Rachel Lindt, a.k.a. Bitch. You may know her as Hellhound, if you're actually one of the good guys."

"I've heard of her," he said gruffly.

"Well, anyway, we've stuck to mostly small-time stuff. Robberies, mostly. We're the good kind of villains; we don't kill, we stick to the unwritten rules, and we don't hurt civilians."

"That doesn't change that you're villains!"

"We are both villains. Or at least, that's how the public will see it."

"Not anymore."

"Okay, fine, I'm not going to stop you turning hero or whatever. Just, can you please not do anything rash while I go talk to this other guy?"

Brian shifted heavily in his chair. "Okay, fine."

"Promise you won't try to arrest us or turn any of us over to the authorities. Not yet, at least, not until we have everything figured out."

"Okay, fine. I won't arrest you or turn anyone over to the authorities until we've figured more out, I promise." My power told me he was sincere. "I don't want to arrest you, anyway. You're supposed to be a hero!"

"We can talk about this later, but for now, I think it's only fair you give me a quick rundown of what you're used to."

"Lisa, I want to trust you, but you just got through telling me how you are a villain."

"Brian, I promise I won't tell anyone else, or use anything you tell me for nefarious purposes. I just need all the information I can get so I can figure out what's going on here."

"I think I'd rather just talk to Dr. Wayne."

"Who?"

"Doctor Thomas Wayne? Owner of Wayne Enterprises, one of the largest corporations in Brockton Bay?"

"Never heard of it. Maybe you should start there; that sounds like a pretty big divergence between our worlds. And remember, short version, I need to head out soon."

Brian took his head in his hands. "Fine. I guess I don't have any better options." He lifted his head up and started talking. "Back after I got my powers, I was trying to figure out what to do when I stopped a mugging. I saved Dr. Wayne from getting shot. He saw my powers, and decided to hire me to be a superhero. I became Batman—you sure you haven't heard of me?"  
"Nope."

"Well, I became Batman. The idea is for me to be the terror that hunts criminals in the night, the counterpoint to the other heroes. While Armsmaster and Miss Militia stand for hope for the common citizen, I am there to scare people away from joining villains. Dr. Wayne also gave me a job as his chauffer, and he called in some favors to get me custody of my sister once I turn eighteen—so a lot like what you said your boss is doing, just without being a villain.

As for how I met you—well, I guess I met you when tried to lift my wallet when I was out on a date at the Boardwalk." Here he cringed a little. Maybe the date went poorly, or the relationship wasn't going well? I was tempted to find out, but I once again clamped down on my power, reminding myself there were more important things. "But really, you found me one night and offered to work with me in exchange for getting you away from your parents. Dr. Wayne's butler took you on as a ward, and you became Oracle in costume. You acted as mission control for me while I went out as Batman."

"Hmm. Did I ever say why I joined you?"

"You said you didn't want to be used by your parents anymore." My power told me he was telling the truth, as he knew it. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that his universe's version of Coil hadn't tried to get me to work for him. _Oh well, something to think about. I should probably get going._

"I really need to get going. Don't worry, I'll be back, and I'll explain as soon as I figure anything else out. Why don't you grab a laptop, try to figure out what else is different and what's the same as you remember? I'm pretty sure you've got a laptop in your room." After checking to make sure he did have a laptop he could use and double-checking that he wasn't likely to cause problems while I was gone, I headed off to the Hebert house.

…

As I headed outside to avoid whatever cape was coming, my emotions were a wreck. First I had been extremely relieved when I didn't have to deal with _**IT**_ 's presence anymore. Then confused, and worried again when Coil may have figured out my charade. I started to feel a little hopeful; with Brian being a hero, and Coil not knowing for sure what level of power I had, I might have a chance of getting out of Coil's grasp. Then, to top it all off: Working with Mr. Hebert, I noticed he seemed extremely comfortable with my presence, almost suspiciously so. I'm used to digging up dirt on people as something of a survival technique—it's what let me find out about Taylor and help her from destroying the universe, for instance—so I thought maybe this would finally let me find dirt on Mr. Hebert. And it turned out that one of his major life goals was freeing me from Coil and adopting me. _I don't even know what I'm feeling right now_. Daniel Hebert was the first adult in my life who didn't just want to use me, and coming on top of finally getting free from the oppressive existential dread that was my life until a few hours ago—Mr. Hebert's commentary made it even more likely that Taylor wasn't able to destroy everything—well, I made sure I was far enough away that Mr. Hebert couldn't hear me cry.

Then something caught my power's attention. With a cape coming, I had to be on alert, so I let it free.

 _Unusually dense insect swarm, signs of organization; swarm is controlled by a Master._

I tensed up. Then, with an eerie chattering sound made up of hundreds or thousands of insects, the swarm _spoke_. "Lisa, what are you doing in someone's backyard?"

 _Knows my name, called my civilian name, is a cape; Knows me personally._

And it obviously wasn't someone from my universe, since nobody I knew had bug control powers.

 _Knows me personally, at Taylor's house; bug-controlling cape is Taylor._

 _Taylor can make an understandable voice from bug sounds; Taylor has had a lot of practice with her power._

"Hi, Taylor! I was just visiting your dad." _There, nice and uninformative. Hopefully she'd give me more clues before I had to fake my way through the rest of this conversation._

The bugs got more agitated. "Anyone who threatens my father will only do so once."

 _Obviously implied death-threat; willing to kill. Has killed before._

 _Highly protective of father; Worried about father. Willing to kill her friends to protect her father._

 _Willing to kill her friends to protect her father; her father has died._

 _Taylor's father has died, but is alive right now; Taylor is from an alternate universe or has time travelled as well._

"No, no, nothing like that! Your dad and I both time travelled as well, I was just helping him figure things out." The bug cloud buzzed ominously before replying.

"Come inside and let's talk." I wiped my tears—hopefully I didn't mess up my makeup too much. And bug eyes shouldn't have been able to see I was crying, right? Then I opened the door and walked inside.

I could hear Taylor telling her dad, "Lisa tells me you time travelled as well. I suspect we have a lot to talk about." Continuing my highly changing mood for the day, inside I was practically jumping for joy. _If Taylor controls bugs, then there's no way she can destroy the universe!_

"You time-travelled too? From when?" asked Mr. Hebert.

"June. June 3rd. Dad…I'm not going to let you die this time."

"What? I died? Did you ever find out I was a cape?"  
"You're a cape? No! What time are you from?"

"December. But I've been a cape since the time you got hit by a car."

"Oh. I guess that's why you didn't know I was a cape; I didn't trigger until January. Did you say I got hit by a car? That never happened."

I said, "That means all three of us are from different timelines. And if I had to bet, getting hit by a car is the divergence point between your two timelines."

Taylor asked, "You're from a different timeline? What's different in yours?"

 _Well, this is awkward. Probably best to go with the truth, since it no longer matters_. "In my timeline, you don't control bugs. You actually had a connection to a being infinitely beyond us in power and mystery, something indescribable from human terms. You were fighting it, but it was only a matter of time before you would slip up and lose control for long enough that it would destroy everything. You slipped a little when Leviathan attacked, but managed to fight your way back. I was your companion. I promised I'd always stick with you."

They were as horrified as I expected, but after a couple of seconds Taylor was all business. "Is this monster still a threat? What can we do to stop it?" _Amazing, how the first thing she thinks of is fighting off the inevitable. It's no wonder my Taylor has lasted for so long._

"As far as I can tell, it's not a threat. Whatever process brought us all to this alternate universe, it left _**them**_ behind."

"That's a relief." We fell into awkward silence. There was a lot to talk about, but none of us knew where to start. Then Taylor asked, "Would anybody like some lunch?"

"No thanks. We've already eaten," I said.

Mr. Hebert started to head to the kitchen. "Let me get you something."

"Don't worry about it, I'm already making it." But Mr. Hebert had already caught sight of the kitchen.

"The kitchen's full of bugs!"

"They're entirely under my control. It's more efficient to let them make me a sandwich while we talk."

"Isn't that really unsanitary?"

"I've been having bugs gather and make my food for over a month now, and I've been fine." Mr. Hebert still didn't look happy with it. Personally, I found it gross, but I was used to ignoring gross food by this point. After weeks spent on the streets with my power telling me exactly where the food I was eating had been, I've gotten used to it.  
"Can you at least not touch any of the food with your bugs?"

"If you say so." Taylor walked into the kitchen. I followed to take a closer look and saw that bugs had prepared a plate, opened a bag of bread, and somehow gotten meat, cheese, and condiments out of the refrigerator, so Taylor only had to put the finishing touches on her sandwich.

Taylor took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. Then, she asked, "Lisa, do you have any idea how or why we ended up in this…alternate universe? alternate timeline? Is it going to undo itself?"

"You have no idea how much I hope not," I said, shuddering. "My power has no ideas. All I can tell you is that it's far beyond any demonstrated capabilities of any capes, Endbringers, or Scion. The only things I know of with the power to do this are the things I hope to have escaped, but I can't think of any motivation." We fell back into awkward silence, and I once again contemplated the horrors I had hopefully left behind.

"Well I for one don't care," Mr. Hebert said. "I have Lisa, and Taylor, I have you, and we're actually _talking_ again, about meaningful things. How have you been in your timeline? I'm hope things weren't too hard for you after I died."

"You have no idea how bad this city got." Oddly, Taylor smiled, as if to a private joke.

"I'm sorry."

"No, Dad, it wasn't your fault. If anything, it was mine. You died because of me, and then Bakuda bombed the city because of me, and I've spent the time since trying to make up for it, to make Brockton Bay the city you've always dreamed it could be."

"Taylor…" Mr. Hebert trailed off, not knowing what to say. Then, more confidently, "I'm sure you did great. Tell us about it." Taylor seemed hesitant.

 _Hesitant to talk; Used to keeping secrets from everyone._

 _Keeps secrets from everyone; trusts few completely. Unsure if she trusts her father._

 _Trusts few, unsure if she trusts her father; Rarely spoke to father before he died. Trust largely based on him being dead and unable to give up secrets._

I cringed internally. _Great. Taylor subconsciously trusts nobody. That can't be healthy._ I'd have to try to get her subconscious to change its mind. I leapt onto the couch and gave an exaggerated, "Yay, storytime!" When that failed to get her to talk, I added, "You know me, I'll figure it all out anyway, this just keeps me from getting a headache. Besides, there's nothing you could have done that's worse than being a universe-destroying monstrosity, and I stuck with my Taylor the whole time!"

"Taylor, I became a villain. Surely whatever you've done isn't worse than that," Mr. Hebert said. I once again cringed internally. What if she had done something worse than that? But instead of getting offended, Taylor just got off-topic.

"You became a villain?" _This better not be Brian all over again._

…

Fortunately, once Mr. Hebert had explained his situation, Taylor was totally accepting of him, and totally pissed at Coil. "Coil just got bumped to the top of the list. I was going to stop him anyway, but Bakuda was first, if only to prevent the bombing spree. But nobody goes after my dad!"

"He shouldn't know your dad has powers. He's from my timeline, and your dad didn't have powers in that one. But I'll still take all the help I can get to take him down."

Mr. Hebert said, "But first, it's your turn to tell your story."

Taylor finally opened up and started to tell the story of how she had helped the Undersiders defeat Lung—this weekend, we'd have to do something about that—gone on a trial patrol with the Wards that somehow let Bakuda learn about her and blow up her house, killing her father. In revenge, she had killed Bakuda, accidentally setting off her dead-man's switch and causing hundreds of deaths around the city. Mr. Hebert and I were quick to tell her not to blame herself, but she clearly did. Taylor hired Quinn Calle, the preeminent cape lawyer in the area, to sue the PRT about her bullying and get a contract for selling spider silk costumes to the PRT, and used the money to buy a farm on the outskirts of town. Then, Taylor had arranged for Lung to kill Kaiser and for New Wave to kill Coil, but had forgotten about the Traveler's secret extra member, who killed Brandish before being killed in turn by Eidolon. Taylor had also killed Krieg and fought Leviathan. Then the Fallen and the Slaughterhouse Nine came to town.

Taylor was in the middle of trying to convince her dad that cutting her eyes out to avoid Valefor's power had been totally necessary and really didn't hurt all that bad, and it was fine because she could see through her bugs and Panacea healed her later anyway, and I was trying to get over my amazement that she hadn't died of blood loss, when Mr. Hebert said, "Fine, you had to remove your eyes to stop supervillains. I think it's horrible that you had to be in that situation, but we don't have time to discuss this right now, because I'm sensing another cape walking closer to us. I'm not sure who it is."

"I didn't notice any capes. I wonder if this means you outrange me. Which direction are they coming from?"

Mr. Hebert took a moment to orient himself before answering, "Somewhere between North and Northeast." We waited a few seconds until Taylor said,

"It's Amy. Panacea. And she's talking to my bugs, so she probably time-traveled too. I think this universe is my past, since I found my unfinished costume downstairs, exactly as I remember it the Friday before I fought Lung the first time."

"Which means the only way Amy should know you is if she is from an alternate universe too," Mr. Hebert said.

"Exactly. Do you mind if I invite her to come here?" Neither of us had any objection. We might want to watch what we talked about a bit more, but the more information we could get about possible futures, the better.

 **A/N: I don't know what date it's supposed to be in** _ **Darkness Rising**_ **, so I picked one. Please let me know if I'm contradicting (fanfiction)canon. (As opposed to fanon, which I think is something slightly different.)**

 **You know what's just as bad or worse than having an awkward conversation? Writing an awkward conversation. Taylor and Danny have never been good at talking to each other, and this Taylor is just bad at talking to people in a non-goal-oriented way, so this conversation was annoying. Add in that I had trouble getting any of their voices right…well, I hope it was okay.**

 **I was originally going to include plotting with Amelia, but this is already the longest chapter I've written, so I cut if off here. Next chapter will be Danny, Taylor, Lisa, or Amelia. Expect it to be up by December 1** **st** **. I've got another unrelated idea I want to write first.**

 **Attributions: Brian is from** _ **Worm's Finest: Darkness Rising (Worm/DC fusion; Bat!Grue)**_ **by Cyclone. As people have guessed, Lisa (and Coil) are from** _ **The Monsters in Her Mind (Worm x Lovecraft)**_ **by aldriankyrrith. As nobody has guessed, Taylor is from the** _ **Memorials**_ **series starting with** _ **Cenotaph (Worm) (Complete)**_ **by notes.**


	10. 1-10: Taylor Hebert

As soon as I realized that I had apparently time-travelled, I decided to go see Dad. I didn't even consider staying in school till the end of the day—I hadn't gone for months, and I had no reason to stay now. Particularly when I needed to figure out what was going on.

But when I got to Dad's office, he wasn't there. I went inside and asked his coworker—I couldn't remember his name—where he had gone, and he told me Dad wasn't feeling well and had decided to take the day off. So my next move was obvious: _Go home. Find Dad. Figure out what the hell is going on later._

As always, I gathered a swarm as I went, keeping it as inconspicuous as I could and using it to maintain an awareness of the area. Thus, as soon as my home was in range, I noticed Dad was not alone. I quickly, but cautiously, pulled enough bugs into the corners and dark regions of the room that I could hear and see what was going on without being noticed. _What's Lisa doing there?_ I immediately checked the surrounding area for the other Undersiders. I had been running at a comfortable jog, but I upped my pace a little to get more of the surroundings of my house in my range. If this was somehow the past, I knew Lisa had been working for Coil, so I checked the surroundings for anyone who seemed suspiciously like one of his gunmen. It was harder than usual to check everyone—my city had been improving dramatically lately, but it still had nothing like the population density from before Leviathan's attack. On top of that, bugs were much more conspicuous in this pre-disaster city, but I made do. It wasn't like I had been unable to scout with bugs before Leviathan the first time around.

Anyway, as far as I could tell, Lisa had come on her own. She was armed, with a handgun hidden under her waistband, so I had my bugs start preparing silk threads I could use to stop her if she turned out to be hostile. _Nothing is going to happen to Dad this time_. Fortunately, Lisa got up and went into the backyard as I was nearing the house. That made things easier—if she was a threat, I could deal with her without Dad being in any danger. I made my way up the front steps, being sure to skip the rotten step, while at the same time questioning Lisa. I gathered a swarm together densely enough to speak, remembering at the last minute not to give away that this was my house. Lisa would probably figure it out anyway if she didn't already know, but there was no reason to make things easier for a possible opponent. "Lisa, what are you doing in someone's backyard?"

"Hi, Taylor! I was just visiting your dad." _So she does know who I am. Lisa from this time has no reason to know me. She must want my dad as leverage._

I opened the door and asked, "Dad? What are you doing home?"

"I'm wondering the same thing myself." _It's really him._ I dropped my backpack, ran forward, and hugged Dad tightly. _I'm never letting him go_.

Outside, I warned Lisa, "Anyone who threatens my father will only do so once." She looked suitably worried by the threat. _Good, she knows I'm serious_.

"No, no, nothing like that! Your dad and I both time travelled as well, I was just helping him figure things out." _Well, that could change things. I guess I should invite her inside._

"Come inside and let's talk." Inside, I finally pulled away from Dad and said, "Lisa tells me you time travelled as well. I suspect we have a lot to talk about."

….

I was right, we did have a lot to talk about. I tentatively decided to trust Lisa—I couldn't imagine why she would be lying about her story, and she'd always been straight with me back in my own timeline. As for Dad—I should have trusted him immediately, right? He's my own father, of course I should trust him. But I caught myself evaluating him as a threat or possible asset—it would be really great to have another Tinker on my side, particularly one who could potentially have any Tinker power. And when he said he had become a villain, part of me didn't believe him, but a bigger part of me just started preparing countermeasures in case he turned on me. Even worse, I didn't feel bad about it. _I know I should feel bad, but I just don't. Dad's been dead for so long, I don't remember how to interact with him anymore. I wanted him to be proud of my efforts at cleaning up the city in his honor, but he just seemed to be worried about me. Doesn't he realize I could handle it?_

 _He was happy to see me, and he loves me. I love him, and I'm happy to have him back. I just need to remember that._

….

I was trying to make Dad understand why I had to cut out my eyes to stop Valefor when Dad noticed a cape coming. My first thought was that this meant he might outrange me, so I probably couldn't sneak up on him. _Damnit, I did it again. Dad's not a threat!_ I focused a little more intently on the bugs to the north-northeast. The approaching cape was Amy. "I don't know if you can hear through insects yet." "If you can, please respond. I am Amel... Amy Dallon. Panacea. If you don't know who that is, you can look it up. We need to talk." I told the others about her, and we agreed to invite her into our discussion. I verified that Amy had come from an alternate reality as well, and told her that we were from different realities or timelines as her so she would be on the same page when she arrived.

There was almost a problem when Amy entered the house. As soon as she saw Lisa, Amy recoiled. "Why is _she_ here?"

"I asked her to come here to help me out," Dad defended her. "I've known her for months, and she's been nothing but helpful. Do you have a problem with her?"

Amy seemed to pause, taken aback. Then, in a much smaller voice, she said, "No, I was just surprised she was here." Addressing Lisa, she asked, "How do you know Danny?"

"How do you know Lisa?" Dad asked.

Lisa answered both of them. "Coil pressganged Danny into working for him when he found out he was a Tinker. And in Amy's…no, that's not right, is it? What do you go by now?"

Apparently-not-Amy grimaced slightly. "Amelia. It's my birth name."

"Right. In Amelia's timeline, alternate me was in some sort of parahuman group with Taylor and Amelia. Although by the way you seem to hate me, your Lisa must have betrayed the group."

"You wouldn't do that!" Dad protested yet again.

"Well, she did. Will. Whatever. The point is I don't trust her, but she's useful, and we'll do a lot better if we work together, so let's just forget it for now," Amelia said.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," I spoke up.

….

After that tiny snag, we had Amelia tell us about herself for a while, then went one room over so Lisa could give us her opinion of Amelia's trustworthiness. "She's hiding a lot. Even more than what she said she wasn't willing to tell us yet, but I don't think any of it means we shouldn't trust her. She and her Taylor are not just business partners—they're more like extremely close friends, at least, and I think that the differences between you and her Taylor are throwing her off." _At least?_ "But on the whole, she's on the up-and-up." Dad seemed willing to bring her into our little group, and although it was weird working with a group at all, I didn't mind expanding it by a member.

We spent the next several hours sharing stories from our own timelines, trying to match things up to find what facts remained consistent and what changed. Amelia had made no more progress than me on my list of world-ending threats. She had killed Jack Slash, but so had I. She had never even heard of whatever Harbinger retired from the Slaughterhouse 9 to do, although for some reason she was really confident that _someone_ would have taken care of him by now if it was really bad. In terms of good news, at least there was no sign of whatever things Lisa apparently had to deal with.

Once we had firmly established what had happened in each of our respective timelines, we moved on to setting goals and planning for the future. Dad pulled out a rolling whiteboard that he sometimes used when people came over on work business, and we started brainstorming. That was when things got heated.

….

"No, I'm not going to make self-replicating mutant bugs that make you omnipresent over Earth Bet!"

"Why not? You said your Taylor was omnipresent on Avalon!" In other circumstances, and with anyone else speaking, that might have sounded petulant or even whiny. But I was using my bugs to talk to Amelia as she washed up in the bathroom. I had a feeling that Dad wouldn't approve of this plan either.

"I didn't then either! Taylor's power was extended through power repeaters in the Yggdrasil, not self-replicating bugs!"

"If the self-replication is the problem, just make them so they can't breed unless I make them."

Amelia sighed. "Look, you seem really pragmatic, so I'm hoping you won't get too offended, but _I don't trust you_. You're not Taylor—I mean, obviously you're Taylor, but you're not my Taylor, and even if you're telling the truth about everything you've done, I don't think you should be trusted with that kind of power." _Hmm. So I guess my most important move now is to get Amelia to trust me_. "Even **if** __you somehow get me to trust you, it's still too dangerous. If most of the world found out, they'd want to kill you immediately."  
"I told you, I've gotten really good at being careful to hide in the shadows and let nobody know who's actually doing things. We can do this subtly. And even if anyone finds out about me, we can probably take them. I've got my bugs, your power is ridiculously good for making an invincible home base, who knows what kind of bullshit tricks Dad can Tinker up, we have Lisa for Thinker support, and if we can get any of the other capes you suggested we recruit we'll be even more unstoppable."  
"I don't think you understand what you'd be up against! The entire Protectorate would want to stop you! The Triumvirate could beat us immediately! And there are Thinkers and Strangers powerful enough that they would absolutely figure out what you were trying and take you out!" I made sure to offload my frustration to the elements of my swarm that weren't visible to Dad or Lisa in the room where we were having a different conversation. It really wouldn't do for them to learn about it.

"You also tried something ridiculous with your Avalon plan, and you said you were able to handle everyone who came your way."

"There were people who didn't care about what we did who would absolutely care about what you want to do! It's one thing modifying a dead Earth to be able to support life—it's another thing entirely to take over the world we live in!"

"Speaking of which, you obviously had the power to do this back in your own world. Why didn't you? You fixed up Brockton Bay, and sponsored several teams of superheroes cleaning up America, but you could have done so much more!"

"You don't understand, the world is more complicated than that. Once we founded a sovereign nation we couldn't interfere on U.S. soil in anything more than a limited capacity when it wasn't an emergency." If spitting in disgust would have meant anything for my bugs to do, I would have done it. Instead, they just got even more agitated.

" **Politics**." _This is one of the best things about working with Accord. He doesn't worry what society will think of him. He just gets things done._ I almost launched into a rant about how it was unacceptable to let people die because of political concerns, but my thought about Accord made me realize I had been approaching this conversation the wrong way. After hearing about the lengths Amelia had gone to in her own world, I had started to think of her as an ally. Clearly I should be treating this more like a negotiation. And the first rule of negotiating was not to make things worse for yourself. Amelia obviously thought I was unfit for the power, and if she disagreed with my reasons, just stating them some more would not make her change her mind—even though they were completely correct. I would have to table the conversation for now until I could plan it out a bit better, since unlike my conversations with Accord, nobody was in danger of being murdered if I didn't solve the problem immediately. Well, except for all the people dying of violent crimes around the world that I could have stopped if Amelia had gone for the plan, but there was nothing I could do about that now. And at any rate, Amelia did have a point—it would probably be safer to build up our power base first before trying any moves as dramatic as I was thinking. I'd just have to be careful to reveal as little of myself to the public as possible so that when we did make our move, nobody would associate Taylor Hebert, or even "that bug-controlling cape from Brockton Bay," with the omnipresent justice dealer I hoped to become.

"I still think we could handle anyone who finds out about us, but in any event, you are right that we have better things to be thinking about right now. Besides, Dad and Lisa are probably wondering where you got off to by now. I'll concede the point for the moment."

….

That conversation was just one of a number of ways we didn't all see eye-to-eye. It turned out Amelia's biggest priority was to get her old team back together and find a way to "undo this messed up timeline", but the rest of us ABSOLUTELY did not want that to happen. Lisa's timeline had been in constant danger of being destroyed by eldritch monsters—that was actually our leading theory for how our timelines had gotten messed up in the first place. And besides that, Lisa had had to deal with a monster within her mind for as long as she was there. I was perfectly happy to have my dad back and to have a second chance to fix Brockton Bay without screwing everything up, and Dad was just happy to have a better chance of getting out from under Coil's thumb, although I could tell he wasn't comfortable that I was so involved in cape stuff.

Fortunately, Amelia's plan for getting back to her old timeline involved forming a hero group and fixing things to build a power base, so we didn't think we'd have any problems working together. Well, except for her unwillingness to use the more direct measures I proposed. Still, she opened up a ton of options for my powers specifically—acid bugs, relay bugs, a flying mount she called an Atlas, doglike monsters, tranquilizer and/or botulinum delivery bugs, and fireflies that actually caught fire. With some luck, I'd be able to take down far more serious opponents at range than I ever had before.

We all had our own ideas for plans, both overall and for the immediate future. I was going to drive the gangs from the city and kill Coil, preferably without letting people know a bug-controlling cape had done it. I wanted to preserve my options. Dad just wanted us to stay safe, which was of course a prerequisite for my plan. I hoped he wouldn't be too overbearing about worrying, though. Amelia planned to recruit Chariot (a movement-based Tinker I hadn't encountered, Blasto, Bonesaw, Flechette, Parian, Dinah, and Vista, and to get the Flechette-Labyrinth interaction going so she could build up her power base in Avalon. After making a quick phone call (and yes, I actually gave her privacy when she called), Lisa told us that Grue was going to stop being a villain immediately, and she was pretty sure that she'd be able to get the rest of the Undersiders to work with us, or at least stop being villains, with a little bit of the influence and leverage we were expecting to get pretty soon.

With our goals set, we next had to talk about methods. Some research and staring at calendars let us figure out that I had originally fought Lung the upcoming Sunday night when he went after the Undersiders. Grue being a time traveler was sure to change the Undersiders' dynamic, but it wouldn't stop Lung from going after them, so we'd have to deal with that somehow. Fortunately, with Amelia on my side, I should finally have enough firepower to take Lung out. In the meantime, I was more worried about Bakuda. Lung's capture had set off her bombing spree the first time, so it would be safest if we could take her out before Lung was captured. Fortunately, Amelia was willing to help out with this, so she started to make a number of short-lived relay bugs for me to search with while we continued to plan. We took a short digression to consider whether anyone in the city would notice my bugs, but we were pretty sure Tattletale and maybe Armsmaster were the only ones who would, so using the bugs cautiously to gather intelligence should be pretty safe.

Next on the list: Coil. The Undersiders' boss, and apparently also a time-traveler, although he fortunately was from Lisa's timeline and would be equally clueless about the rest of us as she had been. He had to be taken out before he could take Dinah or find out my dad was a Tinker. I suggested that I saturate the city with relay bugs and take him out tonight—his power to split timelines wouldn't save him if I could attack both of his locations at once, and he wouldn't be a security leak if he was dead. But before I could convince Dad that killing Coil was necessary, Amelia brought up how useful he would be as an asset, and she couldn't make the mind-control device she'd used in her timeline without Bonesaw, or Dad after absorbing sufficient biotinker powers. We still had to capture him, but it would be a lot harder, so I settled for just scouting. There was an additional complication: Coil had ordered Lisa to find out whether I could still destroy the world. We debated telling him yes so he would steer clear of me, but we were afraid he would see through the ruse, so we eventually decided it would be simpler to just lie and say that neither I nor my dad was a cape in this reality.

The discussion about Coil brought up another important point: we didn't know who else had come from alternate timelines. In addition to the four of us, Coil, and Grue, apparently Glory Girl, Brandish, and two of the Wards had also time traveled. So one of our priorities would have to be gathering as much information as possible to see if any of our enemies in the city gave themselves away. This, too, was my job, and Lisa promised to help with her power as much as she could.

Information would be key in the upcoming fight, so it was essential that we secure the aid of the most powerful precog any of us had encountered. That was why I sent another tendril of my awareness off towards Dinah Alcott's house, where I found that she was lying in bed, asleep. _Well, I guess it is starting to get late, and younger kids usually have earlier bedtimes. Plus, she might be trying to sleep off a Thinker headache._ We decided that I would go talk to her tomorrow. We didn't want her to hate us, and nothing was urgent enough for us to wake her up tonight, particularly if she did have a Thinker headache. We decided I should talk to her since I was still a relative unknown, unlike Amelia. Lisa had her own people to take care of, and Dad was nowhere near as experienced a cape as the rest of us. In the meantime, I kept watch over her house with my bugs, although I wasn't too worried: nobody should be gunning for her yet, so it would probably be safe for me to leave her unguarded when I eventually went to sleep.

Amelia also had me looking for Chariot's secret identity so she could give him the recruitment pitch the next day. I eventually found him, and I found Bakuda's lab, although she wasn't in it; just a bunch of ordinary members of the ABB. By that time, it was getting really late, so Lisa headed back to the Undersiders' base (with me providing bug escorts, just in case). Amelia asked if she could stay at our house. I was immediately suspicious—with her touch-range power, it would be extremely simple for her to overpower us once we had fallen asleep—but I reminded myself that Lisa seemed sure Amelia was on our side, at least for now, so I allowed it.

Just as we were about to go to bed, Amelia smiled sheepishly and said, "Ah, I almost forgot. Could we take a side trip to Arcadia High? I need to use your bugs to grow more grass."

 **A/N: I originally had Amelia bring up Eidolon and Cauldron as reasons why Taylor would never get away with taking over the world, but TanaNari says that Amelia doesn't trust them enough to mention the Endbringer battles, Cauldron, and Scion.**

 _ **Memorials**_ **!Taylor isn't very fun to write not in a battle. She's just so…I don't want to say boring, but she's not a normal person, and it's really hard for me to get into her head, so I hope it came out okay. Her emotions tend to be really subdued in places I feel strongly (trust, love, comfort) and super strong in areas I'm not so great at (anger, determination).**

 **I know this is still a ton of planning and not much action, but there is a decent amount of character interaction, so I hope you're not bored. Also, I figured I could invoke the inverse of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee on some of their plans. Sure, they'll inevitably get messed up, but you readers won't know that unless you know what the plans were in the first place.**

 **Also—I can already tell some of you are going to complain about this being a "Taylor & Amelia stomp everything" fic. Well, yeah, they are kind of ridiculous, and it wouldn't be true to the source material if they weren't really powerful. On the other hand, I hope to keep a good balance of challenges. In particular, there's going to be a lot of inter-character conflict, and the story is going to focus on other characters just as much as them. Plus, they're not the only ones with knowledge of the future, and everyone's plans should end up disrupting each other nicely.**

 **On a different topic, can people think of any minor divergences (not the obvious ones) from canon that showed up in the fanfics I'm using? I'm going to keep this story as close to canon (including WOG) as possible, but the characters from other stories keep the interpretations from those stories. So far I have:**

 **Glory Girl's shield has a much longer recharge time in** _ **MoaSV**_ **.**

 **Krieg has straight telekinesis in** _ **Cenotaph**_ **instead of his more complicated WOG power.**

 **Rune went to school in** _ **Atonement**_ **(I think?) but had a public identity in WOG.**

 **Browbeat was different in** _ **Cenotaph**_ **than in the WOG.**

 **The Travelers (particularly Noelle) were already in Coil's base in** _ **Cenotaph**_ **when they wouldn't have been there yet in canon. In particular, I'm pretty sure Coil's base was more complete in** _ **Cenotaph**_ **than in canon, where it wasn't even done yet by the time of the Leviathan fight (if I remember correctly).**


	11. 1-11: Sophia Laborn

**A/N: Huh, just realized I only ever posted this chapter on Spacebattles. Well, here it is for those of you who don't check that. Not my best chapter, unfortunately, and sorry, I'm not starting to write this again either.**

Suddenly I wasn't in the street talking to New Wave anymore. I was back in my civilian clothes, sitting in my seat at Winslow High. _What the hell?_ I nearly ran out of the room right then, but I didn't want to make a scene, and a quick glance at the wall clock showed that it was only five minutes until lunchtime. I tuned out what the teacher was saying and tried to figure out what to do.

My first thought, and accepted procedure for a Ward in a strange situation, was to call in to the Wards, but I really didn't think there was anything my team could do. _When did I start thinking of the Wards as my team, anyway?_ But as annoying as she was, Tattletale was probably my best bet for figuring out what the hell was happening. So as soon as the bell rang for lunch, I grabbed my bag and booked it. Apparently my phone I used for contact with Brian and the Undersiders wasn't at school with me, so I decided to just head over to their lair in person.

As I made my way up the stairs in the lair, I could hear Alec and Brian talking. I went into the loft and said, "Hey bro, what the hell is going on? I was out on the street and then suddenly, bam! I'm in school!"

"Sophia? What are you do…oh, you're from an alternate universe too?"  
"Alternate what now?"

"Yeah, apparently a bunch of us time travelled or came from an alternate universe or something. So far we know about me, Lisa…uh, Lisa's a friend of mine…Lisa's boss, and a friend of Lisa's. And I guess you now."

"Yeah, yeah, I know who Lisa is, dork. So time travel, huh? What's the date anyway?"

"April 8, 2011."

"Sweet! It's before the clusterfuck at the bank! Wait, should we really be talking about this with him here? Won't it mess up the space-time cont… cont… what was it?"

Alec supplied the word. "Continuum."  
"Right. Won't it fuck up the space-time continuum or some shit?"

"Nah, it's fine, I've been helping Brian figure out what he missed, and the world's still here," Alec drawled, leaning his head back on his arms as he lounged on the couch.

"That's good. Wait, what does he mean, figure out what you missed?"

"I came from 2009, so I missed a lot of stuff. He's been filling me in."

"Wow, that sucks. I should be able to help you out."

Alec cut in. "Wait, hold on a second. How do you know Brian if you think you can help him out? I've never even met you!"

"You haven't? That must be one difference, I guess he never introduced you to me." I stepped closer to Brian, put an arm around his shoulder, and squeezed. "This big lug's my brother."  
"What?!" Brian backed away quickly.

"Whoa, did not see that one coming. Brian, you've been holding out on me. Never told me you had a hot sister." I turned a death glare on Alec, but he was infuriatingly unafraid, as usual.

"You're my sister? But…I only know you from Grant's Gym, which apparently doesn't even exist here."

"What? How could I not be your sister? Is Aisha still your sister at least? Dad's a hardass, Mom's always got shitty boyfriends?"

"Yes! How do you know all that?"  
"Because I'm your sister, idiot!"

Brian got quieter. "I'm sorry, but you're not my sister. Maybe your version of Brian's sister, but I hardly know you."  
"So I guess you didn't have me infiltrate the Wards for you then?" Another chorus of "What?"s rang out.

"You're a cape?" Brian asked. I just shifted to my shadow state for a second. "You're Huntress?!"

"Shit, you're Shadow Stalker?" Alec scrambled over the back of the couch and tripped to the floor in his sudden haste to get away from me.

Brian spoke to Alec. "Calm down, so what if she's a hero? I'm a hero, and I haven't arrested you yet."

It was my turn to be surprised. "Wait, you're a hero?"

"Yeah, I'm the Batman. And you've worked with me as Huntress for months, but I never knew you were Huntress."  
"Well **I'm** Shadow Stalker, and I've been your spy in the Wards."

"Oh, you have got to tell us about that, I bet it's a great story, you're practically nemesises here," Alec said, now standing and relaxed again. "Hey, wait, did you still shoot Brian and make him bleed all over the new couch?"  
I grit my teeth and glared. "Yes. It was an accident. Shut up."

…..

The three of us talked for a while about the similarities and differences in our universes. Brian was determined to become a hero like he had in his own universe, even over my arguments that without the Waynes there would be nobody to get him custody of Aisha if he turned hero. I guess he was too used to being a hero to give it up, and he was convinced that trusting a villain to honor his word and actually get Brian custody was begging to be betrayed or used. I could see his point, but at least working for his mysterious boss he had some chance of getting Aisha out of our mom's home, instead of no chance if he became a hero. He also had backup as an Undersider. Brian thought he would have Lisa helping him still, which I hoped was true, but even then he wouldn't have any extra muscle or the Tinkertech gear he had in his own universe. There wasn't much I could do to help him out since I was a Ward and was only allowed to use my powers on official patrols. That thought reminded me of something.

"I should probably go to the PRT. They'll want to put me in Master/Stranger protocols, which is gonna suck, but it will be worse if I don't go now. And anyway, that's the best way to figure out if any of the Wards or Protectorate had the same thing happen to them."  
"You're right. Thanks for the help, and make sure you call me again as soon as you can so we can swap information."

"Sure thing, bro. Take care of yourself. I don't want to hear that Grue, or Batman, whatever, got himself killed while I'm in Master/Stranger protocols and can't keep an eye on you."

"Will do. Be safe yourself."


End file.
